Every Day Choices

luxury

2011-06-19T21:30:00.000-04:00

I now realize that the reason I find so little difference between my life and luxury is not because of there is no difference between luxury and plain. The real reason is because Nancy makes my life so luxurious that I think it is normal and so luxury is just rather bland expensive version of what Nancy does so well.

Thank you Nancy for keeping my life so far from plain.

Our Financial Plan

2011-02-16T20:26:00.000-05:00

A year and a half ago we took Dave Ramsey financial peace class. Four years ago we become debt free. Ten years ago we started paying down our debts faster than the minimum payments. To manage our money we have used Quicken, MS money, Donor Manager, Dave Ramsey's software, Dave's paper forms, Crown Financial's software, and Crown's paper forms. We are on our second year of using our own simple one page paper budget each month. A second quarterly paper form tracks our savings and investing. A third form, which we have not used since 2006, tracked how much debt we had, principle, interest, and number of payments remaining for each loan. All three of these forms are Excel documents printable and readable on one page and are the best tools for us to manage our money.

For the most part we follow Dave Ramsey Baby steps. The closer we followed his plan the better our life has gone. Yet I still would do some things differently. If I could go back and tell my 18 year old self what to do it would be:

0. Make a will, and get term life insurance 5x your annual income if you are married or have someone to support.
1. Read Dave Ramsey and others to get educated on God's way of handling money.
2. Quickly get to the point that you live on last months income. What is made in May is spent in June. What is made in June is spent in July.
3. Have a spending plan. Each month write a new one. Remember 1/12th of the yearly bills.
4. Pay off every single debt except the house. Use Dave Ramsey's debt snowball.
5. Boost the term life insurance to 10x your annual income, the end of the term should be about the same time you plan to retire.
6. Expand item #2 to be six months. What is made in January is spent in June, what is made in February is spent in July.
7. Create sinking funds for the next car / other big purchases.
8. 15% of your pretax income to retirement.
9. Help out the kids for college.
10. Build sinking fund accounts into super-fund accounts.
11. pay off the mortgage.
12. retire wealthy. Be reasonable, if you find yourself with insane amounts of money you need to:
13. give give give. Because really that is the goal goal goal of doing this whole thing for me.

My Past

2010-06-27T15:28:00.000-04:00

I looked back through the posts and realized that I never took the time to write out my story. I don't know maybe it is one story, maybe it is many. I have a professional life, what I have done to make money. I have my hobby life, what I have done for fun. I have my spiritual life, where God and I intersect. I have my family life, where those people that have to be around me and I intersect. While they are all separate they are not incongruent. They fit together like one is the light of a movie, another is the sound, the third the motion.

One.

The one that is most important is the spiritual.

For years now I have prayed "Thy will be done." This has come out of the fact that I noticed that when saying the Lords prayer the convenient place of needing to take a breath is exactly at that phrase. How convenient.... For years I took that prayer to be God you are great, take care of me.

God your will be done.

That phrase has changed my life, it has warned me of chipmunks and given me deer. It has taken me to India, It has given me a restless spirit longing for a home. It has left me excited and scared again and again.

I am amazed how the more I pray that one line of prayer the more times Jesus is intersecting in my life. But not everything is ultra spiritual. Not everything is the mountain top experience with the perfect and nothing but being surrounded by the glowing goodness of God.

What are my mountaintop moments? In the order of time, these are the ones that I remember. Each one is a story in itself. Some I have already blogged about, others only friends know.

Being prayed for by four ladies speaking in tongues.
Admitting my sin, that I could not do life on my own and needed the Holy Spirit in my life now, and Jesus is the Savior of me and the world.
Being commissioned by God as I left college.
Buying a house and fixing it up, only to sell it at a financial loss.
The call to go to Chennai for a year.
The chipmunk and so many other things of faith building.
Attending the church I now attend.
This future plan that I do not understand and am scared to pursue.

I am scared to pursue it because of the scars in my life. The sin I still have and hold onto. The knowledge that what I am thinking of is HUGE. Beyond my control, beyond anyones control. But again I am reminded that my sin is my past, my sin is forgiven, my sins are forgiven. My future IS bigger than I can handle. But it really is not my future. It is GOD'S future. I have been praying for God's will to be done, and he wants to get started with HIS future.

Unschooling

2010-04-21T21:43:00.000-04:00

Each person is responsible for their own education, in the classroom or out of it.

GMA set off a firestorm about unschooling here and here. I read http://walkslowlylivewildly.com/ and http://theorganicsister.com/ and as I care about people educating themselves I had long comments on their sites. I decided to write the long response here, and to write the summary in their comments.

I was only unschooled on nights, weekends, and the summers, My parents paid for me to go to a Christian school from K-8th grade. High school was at a public school, three years at a community college, three years at a university, and distance learning involving 5 universities obtained my Masters in Human factors after work for six years. I wised up in the 7th grade and started taking advantage of the classes offered to control my own education to reach the goal I set out. I figured out that I was responsible for my own education and future at that young age. The counter side is because I stayed in classrooms I had to meet a grading curve. To meet that hurdle I cut corners on my homework and passed classes with high grades. Cheating in early classes made the later classes exponentially more difficult. It took the grace of a professor to let me pass some of my last semester classes instead of requiring me to retake those classes.

Looking back in time I can see points in time where my unschooling life was in step with my schooling life. When I was 10 I passed a punctuation quiz with a 100% when the rest of the class had about 50%s. Why, I did not study for it more. I was a stage in my life where reading was very important. I was seeing example after example of correct punctuation when I was not in the classroom. My last semester of college I did such an excellent job animating a factory that the professor gave me a reasonable grade in his other class where I was not doing as well.

My daughter is 5, she knows when she wants to be read to, she knows when she wants to color. She knows when she wants to be on Starfall or PBS.org. She knows when she wants to be doing what we are doing and when she wants us to do something else. She can play on her own, she can play with friends. But as her preschool teacher says it, she needs to 'get the wiggles out' and sit still in the corporate learning environment. Next year she will be going to public school kindergarten and have more practice getting the wiggle out.

Why is my daughter going to traditional school given all I have learned?

Because I work all day the choice is not really mine but my wife's with my input. She says she does not have the patience, or the observational skills to pick up cues to be in charge of schooling. She said we can pull our daughter out of school for sex ed. But then what is going to happen? She will be getting the GMA version on the playground. She already gets the GMA versions of many other things playing with kids in the neighborhood.

It has been proven that a husband of a college educated wife will make more money than a husband of a non college educated wife. (and gender vis-a-vis) My question is, can a person unschool all the way to a masters degree? Do they still need to go to college at some point? I was downsized from two jobs because my degree did not match that of the definition of the position even though it was proven I was excelling at the jobs. Could I be where I am now if I had not done classrooms and gotten degrees from known universities?

I listen to the Dave Ramsey show and he says a quote "You will be the same person you are except for the books you read and the people you meet." Learning does not end at graduation. Right now I am privileged to be able to learn from parents who are unschooling.

I am proud to know people that have taken charge of their own education and have the wherewithal to entrust their own children to take control of their own education.

Halo

2010-04-06T22:07:00.002-04:00

Halo, there's a halo, over everyone who sees into the eyes of the least of these.

Halo, there's a halo, over every boy and girl who will overcome the world. -the Sages

Servant Leadership

2010-03-29T22:07:00.004-04:00

I need to do this in my own house as well as outside my house.

Servant Leadership from Granger Community on Vimeo.

Love of fish

2010-03-10T22:18:00.000-05:00

The 80/20 house

2009-06-17T12:30:00.001-04:00

"You might even want to use the Pareto principal, also known as the 80-20 rule, to help guide your decisions. This simple rule says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So instead of building 100% of a house to fulfill 100% of the functionality, build 20% of the house and get 80% of the functionality. This is a pretty smart approach because we usually only use a small portion of a large home’s functionality but it will always costs at least 100% or our time, money, and energy. So some functions might need to be left out of the design because their value doesn’t offset their cost." -Michael Janzen June 2009 Small Living Journal http://smalllivingjournal.com/

Micro Economy

2009-06-12T21:02:00.003-04:00

I was introduced to someone this week that wanted to know more about microfinance and how to use it. That got me thinking.

Microfinance is an odd misnomer. Microfinance is typically implemented by the ultrarich to work in communities lower down the economic scale. But take a look at the books, charts, and details. Microfinance does not work best in the lowest of the low, the true micro, but in the $1 to $5 a day / person economies, which again looking at the entire world charts and figures are the median majority, nothing really micro about them, they are average and the implementers are in the ultraoversized.

Another aspect is in the average economies is the communities are very interdependent. India has a regular system of clearing out slums and moving the ones housed there to better living conditions. Each time the response is 'you moved me away from my neighbors and my whole world is torn apart.' This is significant, in the average economy a single family does not make a single self sufficient financial unit. The neighbors are part of the financial stability of the family and the individual. These communities take time to rebuild because they are more than just give and take value transaction. They are built on solidarity, trust, love, and all the other emotions of the heart.

So while microfinance is neat an all what is really needed is focus on the matters of the heart, and looking at microfinance that truly works, the money transaction is coupled with education of social issues for change and improvement. The social aspect is more important than the financial aspect. But the average want the opportunity to be above average, the big difference they see is the money. The money is the draw to entice the real change that is needed. Sadly money isolates, and the result is the financially rich become the socially poor. There is a big gap between the average that need to coexist and the financial needs to be independent. That gap is larger than microfinance can handle alone.

Ten Thousand Nos

2009-04-08T22:11:00.002-04:00

When I am working again I will be happy.

Until then... my new job is a a pain.

My new job is looking for a job. I hate this job but it is the one I have to do.

When I am "off the clock" my mood lifts, listening to Owl City is fun. I could make art, I could change the world.

On the clock it is a sad sad world.

There are people out there having fun, getting paid to do it. How can I be one of them? Can I turn this job search fun? Why is it they who get to say no? Why can't I be the one giving ten thousand nos?

Ten Thousand Nos

And One Yes.

Who to be like

2009-01-07T07:33:00.004-05:00

One of my heroes in the Bible is Solomon. This very smart man had God's favor and his God given wisdom brought him so much. Since I was little I prayed that I would have wisdom, maybe not as much as Solomon but more than my fair share without God's help. The truth is I have it, I know more about how things work, I have a pretty good idea what people will do. I have a glimpse into what is really important and what is meaningless.

Wisdom is meaningless. It is for this world, great for now, but for eternity it will be a wash. I chose the wrong hero in the Bible to want to be like. I should have chose Isaiah and walked around naked for three years. Ezra and laid in bed for a year plus. No not really. What I want is to be righteous. That would be so much better. It should be what I long for, it is not enough to be wise, it is better to be able to do the right thing in God's eyes.

flat ponderings

2008-11-16T18:34:00.002-05:00

I bought a craftsman kit a couple weekends ago. The Mullet River 36 foot flatcar is a combination of brass details and wood parts to be glued, soldered, and painted. The painting so far took some work but I am right proud of it. My attempts at gluing are quite fair and I am happy with them. my solder joints look awful. The good news is you can cry cry again over solder joints. Up to a point. Once a soldered assembly is glued to the car it is best not to try to fix it.

I am learning some things while building this car. If I build anymore cars I am going to make a fixture for truss rod shape. I did make one to line the turnbuckle up with the truss rods going left and right, but then hand bent the truss rods after installing them... I can tell.

The good news is there are only a couple more items to solder, the brake wheel to its stand, and the chain to the bar going to the brake lines. I could glue those if I wanted. There is only a couple more hours of work to do on this car.

It is sad to be making a car that cost $132 in parts, knowing I cant sell it for that much due to craftsmanship. But I am learning from my mistakes, and while I could give up, I don't want to. The lessons learned while building this is worth the price.

I want to have a car that I am proud to take to work on the 21st. While I won't be absolutly proud to the point of perfection I will be proud that it is my first finished craftsman project... that is if I keep going.

Railroading

2008-10-29T20:38:00.002-04:00

Lowered three Bachmann On30 flat cars by cutting the boss off the top of the truck per the Pacific Coast Airline Railroad method. Lost a power connector spring while looking at how to lower the Bachmann Shay. Will be lowering the shay the same way as the cars by shortening the boss on the trucks and also removing the ashpan under the boiler.

Eternity

2008-09-04T21:26:00.002-04:00

I believe Jesus is the son of God, He died on the cross for my sins, rose again and is in Heaven preparing a place for me and everyone else who also believes in Him.

What will heaven be like? What will I do there. Here I am an engineer, I design things and help them get built. I am not a bridge engineer but for the sake of argument lets say I am. Will I be a bridge engineer in heaven? I could build bridge after bridge after bridge... even if each was the size of a grain of sand there would be more bridges than there is sand grains at the Chennai Beach.

This makes me think that what I do in Heaven will not be physical building, it will be something else. It says in the Bible that a place is being prepared for us, will it be a place without time? Will I be an object in a picture, frozen in place never to move again?

The reports of death experiences seam to point another direction, meeting relatives and friends past. Those are relationships, the good relationships you had with people during life, people who also chose to believe in Jesus. I think that is all that will be left in eternity, relationships. One giant happy cruise ship of people talking and never getting sad or angry. What will we talk about? A lot will be about the good things we did while living.

I sure don't want to be stuck with nothing to talk about for eternity.

Am I one of Paul's Brothers?

2008-07-24T07:21:00.004-04:00

I am trying to think who I identify with in the bible. Is it Paul a great letter writer and founder of the christian faith? Or is it more with David a man having ups and down following God, still having His heart. Certainly I am not like Job having everything taken away and to God's glory have it replaced.

No when I read the Bible I identify most with just being another Israelite. Now I am not of Jewish lineage but I am of a christian lineage, with parents, grandparents, great grandparents all good church going people. We all lived in an area of the world that has many people like us, a culture of good church going people. We are weekly told of David, Moses, Paul, Jesus, Peter, Ruth, Elijah. Weekly we are told about the ten commandments, the Lords prayer, the beatitudes, and parables of farming. Through it all it is easy to be zealous for this God that loves us, keeping all the rules and adding more just to help us be pure.

But what good is it that we don't smoke, drink, or shop on Sunday, don't use swear words, mow our lawns on Tuesdays, or wash our cars on Wednesdays? But all this is easy to just be like the people described in Romans 9 and 10, good but not God's. It is easy to miss the point of faith and grace, of Jesus and God. Until today I always thought that Mark 10:17-29 was about having lots of money and being blinded. But maybe it is more general, maybe I am rich with too much good and that is why it is so hard for me to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Oh how hard it is to not eat ice cream on Sunday. Sunday is a day of relaxing, ice cream is a food of relaxing, why oh why must the rule be they do not go together? Maybe that is the point of these rules, to show how hard it is to do on our own to call our attention to God such that we cry out to Him asking Him to fill in that gap, to make us good as we lack the ability to do it ourselves.

The scary part is unlike the Israelites God did not make a promise to my forefather that all of my race will be saved. Israelites whether good or bad are God's, my brothers and I are not. But we have hope and confidence, and all those rules have a new meaning, continually reminding us of God's purity, helping us to not let our weak brothers stumble. But the truth is this whole thing is more basic, Christ, God, eternal life, and bringing heaven to earth is blinded to me by my wealth. Not only my wealth of money but also my wealth of good is keeping me from graping God the way He wants me to.

mosquitoes are back

2008-07-02T12:04:00.004-04:00

The hot season was nice for one reason. The mosquitoes were gone. Sadly with the cooler weather I have also returned to my former profession here in India.

Nightly I go mosquito hunting. Tools of the trade are an electric racket and a hand towel. From prior experience the towel is needed to smush those little buggers. The racket is set to stun and if I just let them fall to the ground the kill rate is only 50%. (An experiment with a glass jar proved my theory earlier this year.)

The route is easy, starting in Anna's room tap curtain, a couple fly off, swing, zap, smush. Tap a little harder and a couple more come off, swing, zap, swing, zap, smush, smush. Shake the curtain violently, swing swing swing, zap, smush. Go to next curtain and repeat. Do a couple swipes under the bed (the most I got under there was 5 in one pass) and under the chairs. Then to the next room to repeat the process. I have to cover the whole house two to three times to get them all.

Except that one super mosquito able to drill down through the sheet and my pajamas to suck my blood and give me a welt in the morning big enough and itchy enough to give me pause to wonder if ghost mosquitoes exist and if they would all bite in exactly the same spot...

Thank you Mom for bringing more hydrocortizone.

A picture

2008-06-10T23:25:00.004-04:00

I have been thinking about how the Lord sees us. While I wish I could pin down a single verse in the Bible that this is based on; these thoughts are based on reading all of Paul's letters, and the book "90 Minutes In Heaven." Like most illustrations it is not complete but presents part of the picture.
I have been thinking about how the Lord sees us. And I think the Mogul Indians from 300 to 700 years ago have provided us a great illustration. They have carved screens from rock. Many small holes to make a lace of rock that it is possible to get an good idea what is behind, but not a completely clear picture.
The way I am understanding how the Lord sees us is that he can only see our good, our sin is blocking His full view of us.
Much the same way if He was on one side of this rock screen, our sin, and we were on the other. The thing is we can't open up these holes on our own. We ask Jesus, our rock carver, to carve for us, the best we can do is a little polishing. We must ask Jesus to carve here and carve there.
Then why the heck am I trying to make a pretty screen between me and God, polishing and intricately carving my rock of sin into a beautiful masterpiece? Why am I picking up that stone dust that has fallen and making mud to fill holes already made? Why can't I ask Jesus to smash the rock, break it open to expose in full view myself to God and God to myself?
The way I am understanding it only the good things that God sees will be in heaven. The first hole that is made is Jesus, faith that He died on the cross, and rose in victory. When the time comes the only part of you that will be taken to heaven is what the Lord can see. Why should I waste my time on stuff that is not eternal?

Forty Days

2008-06-05T02:04:00.004-04:00

Forty days… Not that many, just over a month. Many times the Bible mentions 40 days. BibleGateway.com found 23 places. Stories about destroying, waiting, mourning, suffering, testing, scouting, communing, warning, proving, and rejoicing.

Genesis 7 , Genesis 50:3 , Exodus 24:18 , Exodus 34:28 , Numbers 13:25 , Numbers 14:34 , Deuteronomy 9 , Deuteronomy 9:25 , Deuteronomy 10:10 , 1 Samuel 17:16 , 1 Kings 19:8 , Jonah 3:4 , Ezekiel 4:6 , Matthew 4:2 , Mark 1:13 , Luke 4:2 , Acts 1:3

In forty days, July 15th, at one in the morning Nancy, Anna, and I will be boarding a plane in a 24 hour journey through Brussels and New Jersey end at Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. We will be sad, we will be happy, we will be tired, we will be... ‘home.’

We are also anxious, for as it stands now we have little knowledge of what comes then. We are so worried, it is so hard to tell if we are being faithful or foolish. Our support will end, again we will need to work to provide for ourselves, we will need to start a new life. And it is a new life. With the prayer and fasting that I have been doing this past year I have the idea that life is like an oak tree. My past is like an acorn, a sapling, but now I am a tree. Our future will not look like our past, a mature oak tree comes from an acorn, but it is no longer an acorn.

In 40 days things will change.

Debt Visualization

2008-04-25T12:46:00.005-04:00

I was listening to Moneylife the half hour radio show by Crown Financial Ministries. On the April 23rd they talked about how to make a paper chain with each link representing a payment left on the debt. Mortgage, credit card, car, etc. place this in your bathroom or dining room, after each payment you can remove a link. If you are paying ahead remove more links.

Wow what a great thing to do.

From 2000 until 2006 I had an excel file that visualized the same thing, each debt in two columns, principle in one and monthly payment next to it. Each row was a month. Nancy thought it was horrible mess but it helped show how many years it would take us to pay off everything, and how much of what we paid was interest and how much was principle.

Our student loans should have taken us until 2012, cars until 2006, house 2034. The good news is we paid off the cars early, and when we sold the house we paid off the student loans. WE ARE DEBT FREE!!!!

Now this next step in my life I am trying to figure out if I can stay debt free. We still have a credit card, I used it this week to pay a $4000 travel bill. Good news the money is in the bank to cover that when the grace period is up at the end of the month. I would love to by this Christmas close that account. The challenge? am I willing to wait the many years it will take to save up to buy a house? Is Nancy willing to let me?

We have signed up to the fact that we will rent at least the first year after we return to the USA, and probably for a full year after we are settled. We pray that God will provide us the right job, church, friends, housing, school, dreams, in these months to come so that HIS WILL is done on earth, in our lives, and in our hearts.

I worry how different that will be from average, I worry how different that will be from easy, I am considering the cost and still I pray Thy Will Be Done.

Prayer Request

2008-04-25T09:54:00.003-04:00

It is a sad day for Ryan, as well as for everyone enjoying our pictures from India. While riding the bus this afternoon someone stole the camera from Ryan's hip pouch. We have filed the police report and also talked with the bus officials but the probability of locating a 7mega pixel camera in India is incredibly low. It will only be by Jesus's providence will it be returned, or even replaced. The cost was more than half our income for this month! Ryan had sold some of his trains so he could afford the camera before we left the USA and there were very few days he did not take at least one picture.

Please pray that Ryan gets over being sad, and if it is God's will the camera is found and returned.

Thinking Outside the Box

2008-04-18T02:08:00.004-04:00

I think differently than most other people. I am not sure if that is because I am a swan waddling around with the ducks, or if I am a duck with some drain bamage. I have known that I think differently for a long time... one thing I have learned from it is to keep my mouth shut... an idea not perfected yet, I just rewrote my last post after being told that while I had some good thoughts my approach was off.

I wrote a little cartoon a couple weeks ago... I am shown as a stick figure who thinks outside of the box. I then show a bunch of heads in the box of people who don't think out of the box. After a little conversation I turn the box into a wagon and pull them off the stage.

Man that is insulting. In a mean way I am saying that people that think like everyone else are stuck being a follower of those that don't think like them. No one likes to be thought of as mundane. And as someone who thinks differently I need to be certain that if I am going to lead I am right not wrong, lets pull a whole load of lemmings over the cliff why don't we?

As a Christ follower I am struggling right now with why I think differently. Honestly I don't think I should think and act like everyone else, but have thoughts in line with Christ. I do my best to filter what I think through what I know from the Bible, and I always try to learn more from the Bible to filter my new thoughts.

Lastly I think that there are others out there that think about the things I do and in the way I do. Other swans whos box I can hop into to be pulled by a goose. I am praying to find the swans or the geese or the loons to be iron to sharpen my iron.

Manner Become Accustom To

2008-04-11T00:28:00.006-04:00

I first wrote this post on April 11th with a lot more guessing into what Ben Arment should do, Scott in the comments section, and Ben in an email called me to the table on it, I did not in the beginning want to tell Ben what to do, I was trying to place myself in his shoes and figure out what I would do. I rewrote the post on April 21st to remove telling Ben what he should do.

Ben Arment's post below is a catalyst for getting into words something I am trying to figure out for myself. What kind of lifestyle I should live? For the past 10 years (and before that living with my parents) I have had enough income to get everything I reasonable wanted myself. It was easy to spend less than I made, in fact our savings helped us have the funds to live a year an a half before our support began for this year in India. But now I am failing to support my family on $600 a month, I keep spending more, sometimes up to $1000 or $1500, and our savings is almost all used up, I am starting to feel like a rat on a sinking ship.But I think this situation is temporary, I have it in my head that I will again make more money than I need again some day, but how I spend it will be different this time. I am thinking of the concepts behind either the Crown Money Map, or Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps. I am thinking how Paul lived in the Bible. I am thinking of so many free trusting fly by the seat of the pants pauper missionaries I have met.

I am struggling with this idea of lifestyle, my mind is stuck, I see the issue, but I do not fully grasp the answer in a way I am comfortable. In full truth I want a rich lifestyle, I am blessed with the income potential and cursed with the demand for quality. Even so I would not be happy in either place in either town Ben has shown. As near as I can figure out is they both show a stale consumerism lifestyle. But even that does not fully grasp the ideas in my head.

What is floating around? What would I do?

1. Set up a comfortable yet cheap lifestyle way below my income and keep it constant.

2. Give at least 15% and maybe more each year.. maybe 10% +1%*years of marriage?

3. Build up a huge savings, to the point that I could honestly live off from it. Hey by using the equity in our last house Nancy and I had 1.5 yrs of money that allowed us to go to India so I know it is possible. Just next time I want to keep the house.

4. I need to have a reason for a job... this contradicts the above... my nature is if I can sit back and be lazy I will.

5. The environment is pretty important, people are important, the Lord is important.

6. live in a house that is different, that shows a better sense of the concepts of community and solitude in economically viable manner.

Having had a week to think about it more I am dissatisfied with the world, I long to be in perfect heaven. And while I am stuck here I want to do my best to bring heaven to earth, by my example and by my teaching. That means living in a way that pushes average towards the Lord.

I look forward to seeing what Ben and his family does, I am confident he will make the right choice for him, which in turn will be an example for me.

How to get a photo for CCS from an Autorikshaw

2008-04-09T02:23:00.005-04:00

The things I will do to get the shot of a CCS (Crummy Church Sign) for Joel to ridicule. I realized why risk a one shot miss of the illusive Ashram of Sri La Sri of Pighill sign when I could take a video... then a screen shot. http://crummychurchsigns.blogspot.com/

test

2008-04-05T18:07:00.001-04:00

http://ryan3120k.googlepages.com/whiteboard-outsidethebox.ppt

10 questions for Christians

2008-04-03T20:34:00.002-04:00

http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/2008/04/03/inner-issues/

In what area of life have I lost my passion? (What can I do to get it back?)
If the enemy were going to “take me out,” what are my three most vulnerable points?
What new burden has God given me in the last year?
What have I unlearned that has made me closer to God?
What new discipline is God calling me to do?
What has God asked me to do that I haven’t yet done?
Is there something that I think about more than I think about pleasing God? (Money, possessions, ministry, family, recreation, something else.)
Do I have an increasing joy in serving Christ?
Am I handling the pain of ministry with integrity?
Am I still being persecuted for my faith in Christ?

Money Management

2008-03-31T02:50:00.006-04:00

For a long time, almost 10 years I have been tracking my spending, my debt reduction and even how much I have in my model trains. That is right tracking... watching... observing... trending...

Budgeting is something different it is planning... managing... doing...

I was never firm in my tracking... I would know that I would spend about 100 dollars in food and if it was 110 that was OK because I was saving lots too I would take it out of there.

As I said in my last post I learned something new from listening to the Dave Ramsey Podcasts. I learned the easy way to change what we do from spending trending to budgeting. And it is a good time to learn it!

Here in India our support came in as 18k up front, plus we get an additional $660* each month. For the last 8 months we have spent on average 1,000 a month, plus some extras like our paper newsletters and our visa renewal trip. Well now our spending has caught up to us... our savings account is close to zero at the end of the month... we now need to spend only 660 or what ever comes in or we will be spending invisible money.

With credit to Dave here is what we are going to do.

1) Write down everything we want to spend and how much it will cost.

2) take that list and say What is the first thing I will do with my money. Put a 1 next to that.

3) Then a 2 next to #2

4) keep going down the list until we got them all prioritised.

5) Add a new column and total everything above it... ie 1=$1; 2=$2+$1; 3=$1+$2+$3...

6) Take the income for the month (what we were given last month to support us this month) and see that total. If that will allow us to do 1-93 on the list but not #94 to 1000 we don't do any of those.

7) If something comes up that did not make the list that must be paid then you put it on and cut out 90-93 to keep the total = income. If new item is below #94 in priority you don't do it.

It will take some work and a little more discipline but we have 3 more months here and prob a couple more in the states before we get our $avings rebuilt... plus we will keep doing it in general life from now on out.

*The truth is we need about 900 to 1500 to live and do our full list of conservative activities. As it stands Important things are being cut out of our spending to be at $660, our landlord is not charging us for electricity or Internet, our neighbor is cooking meals for us, we are not buying meat to put into the meals we make. We have not sent out a paper newsletter (the plan was to send it in time for Easter.) If you are reading this I ask you to pray about our financial support, and for some of you that also means the Lord will lead you to giving. -thank you in advance.

Money Management

2008-03-31T02:12:00.004-04:00

Crown Financial vs Dave Ramsey

Both are Christ centered trying to get people to use money better. Why should someone choose one or the other?

Sick and tired of being in debt, not being financially free, not having enough money? Both

Have too much money and don't know how to use it? Both

Are you very conservative? Crown.

Do you need a cheerleader with lots of energy? Ramsey.

Do you make each choice through verses in the Bible? Crown

Do you try to not take the Bible so literally but as a general guide? Ramsey

Since i graduated college I have listened to crown's half hour radio show. Applied the theories in my life, saving much, spending less than I earn paying off my debts. All in a conservative way. Great stuff, it has allowed us to fix up a house and sell it at a loss and feel no worry. It has given us more than a years living expenses so we could prep and return from a year volunteering in India.

But still when I would talk about Crown and financial management with friends many of them would respond about Dave Ramsey. Seeing how I have studied to be a coach for people to follow crown's principals I thought I would take the time to understand Dave. For the past month I have downloaded his 39 minute free podcast and listened to it with Nancy.

So much of the foundations and steps are the same between Crown and Dave. But as Dave has a 3 hour / 15 hour a week talk show... six times as long as Crowns 1/2 hour daily he can cover many more topics, he can afford to be looser and less organized.

Yet at the same time he cuts deeper... reached crisis and have the house being repossessed and credit and medical bills chasing you? Pay the house and let the dogs cry in the night. Set priorities "if you can only pay for one thing this month what will it be? -basic food" Next shelter next... next... last vacation. Dave encourages people to drop everything when in debt and fight it off until it is gone gone gone. Don't worry if people are not happy in the process, keep them informed that they will be paid... just not first.

I have even learned something from the way the two companies are organized. Dave and financial peace is based so much on his personality and him. When he dies so will his coaching and energy. Crown is less dependant on a single person... they have already survived the loss of a leader. The loss hurt but they go on. If I am involved in an organization I will set it up like Crown. I am key but not THE key, Christ is.

The truth is as a Crown Money Map Coach there will be times that I will tell people they should look at Dave (financially a competitor because both sell products that are the same) But with good reason, if someone needs the energy to stick with the program all the way to step six or seven then so be it... why let them fail because of my selfishness?

Dave has done one other thing of great value to our family... read about that in the next post.

Dutch

2008-03-23T10:39:00.007-04:00

This is a sad time....

In the spring of 1999 I graduated from MTU, shortly after I traveled back up north to visit my girlfriend Nancy. While she was in class I visited a favorite haunt, the local animal shelter. While in college I went weekly if not more often to walk dogs for them. I am a cat person, frequently saying that I was raised by cats in the wilds of west Michigan. Mostly due to my second most loved cat, Kitzy who was shot by a hunter poaching on our land when i was in Jr High. Ok back to tech, the animal shelter had 17 kittens, plus the usual adult cats. They wanted me to take a kitten, I told them I could only take an older cat as I would be working long hours. They wanted me to take a cat, i told them it had to be declawed, they found one that was... I told them that i had no funds for one as I was a few weeks from starting at GM. They said they would give it to me free, I told them i had no carrier, they found one for me free... no litter box... gift free... litter... gift free... food... gift free.

Well when Nancy found out that I had gotten a cat, and left him in the car (they do not allow cats in the dorms and after Jimmy while i was still a student there... I had thought twice about pushing it) she made me bring him in. Then the issue of a name. Well after much discussion with Nancy and friends I chose Dutch as he had blue eyes, and was free.

Dutch survived the week without being found out... even after a late night walk around the dorm :) what were they going to do kick me out of school, I was graduated. At home we settled into a routine. I would go to work, and when I was home he would jump on my shoulders until bedtime then lay by my feet, waking me up in the morning for food. Going to the bathroom when I went (our toilets were right next to each other.) If I was in the apartment he was there.

Now here is something about Dutch, I doubt if he ever knew he had a tail. I had a fish tank, he sat on top, tail in the water... fish nipping at the fur... later when Nancy was around we learned that we could not have candles and dutch in the same room.

Dutch and I used to play fetch with those little mice, he would bring it to me and I would throw and he would pick it up and bring it back.

When Nancy graduated the next year we realized that unless we did something we would never have any time alone. We got Kaysa from a shelter in Pontiac, I went in looked at the cats, said I wanted the Siamese playing in the water they said come back next week and pick her up after she is fixed. When i came back they gave me a different cat... I thought for 30 seconds and said OK i will take this one... which really surprised them. I figured God could chose a better pal for Dutch than I could. Kaysa was abandoned as a kitten and really has issues with being alone. When I got her home she sat on the arm of the couch trying to figure this new place out. Dutch then got up on the arm right in front of her, then stood on his hind legs reaching his paws way up in the air, Kaysa's eyes were huge!! then dutch mewed at the spider plant just out of his reach. That is when Kaysa figured this all out. And I had been replaced as best friend.

Nancy made chicken and rice for me just after she graduated. As she was serving it some of it fell on the floor, Dutch ran over, sniffed it, then started to do the motions of burying it. (I wanted to do the same... but could not do that for my girlfriend. My wife now knows I do not like chicken and rice.)

We gave money to the human society the summer after Nancy graduated.

There are so many other things about him I can say. When I was making wax drawings I drew this picture of his eye. After our moving company cracked the glass on this picture I brought it in to be reglazed, Sue would not let me take it home again until it was properly framed... $500 later sue was happy. In the future I will be designing a house... an area of it will be done specifically for this picture. My free cat is costly...

Dutch liked to be up high.

Dutch would sleep in a closet all day, with the door closed, when we would open the door he would go out eat, drink and then go back to the closet and settle down again. Kaysa did not like this... she needs to know where her best bud is.

Dutch had allergies usually resulting in dry skin and his right eye being glued shut, the allergy shots we gave him were not good for his liver but did help his eye and skin.

In the morning when I ate breakfast and did my bible reading Dutch would jump on my lap, I would push him off he would jump up again. The most times was 21 before I gave up. He always sat on my lap during breakfast. Unless he was stuck in a closet.

When we had to sell our house in 2006 we gave Dutch and Kaysa to my parents... when they went on their yearly pilgrimage away from the snow down south the cats went to stay at my Aunt and Uncles who already had a cat and a dog.

Sadly, Dutch was not keeping his food down, and at 14 years of age the time had come for a hard choice... further medication or...

I am glad that Kaysa was staying with Dobby and Baxter, else I think the shock of his loss would have been too much.

I would have liked to have Dutch buried at the cabin where Kitzy is buried, but that is too much to ask for when I am in India.

It is a good thing Anna is a girl, I found out that Nancy will not let me name my child the same name as a pet I have had.

I miss you Dutch, you have a special place in my heart.

The Hobby

2008-03-08T08:19:00.005-05:00

This picture on Seth Godin's blog is used to illustrate the fact that the owner let feature creap dilute his core offering. Seth is worried that soon this will be some dusty trains in the back of another convience store.

Truth is, having been in many many hobby shops in my life that this shop is not isolated, the fact that it did add coffee and lottery and maps has allowed the shop to survive just a little longer to sell trains. Most shops start out in year one with all the latest offerings, five years in they offer some hard to find items. Ten years they have some oldies, and twenty oh the nestalga.

You can tell how long the shop has been in business by how old the stock is. There are very few truely profitable shops.The whole hobby industry is in decline, it has been for almost 20 years now. Most shops are hobbies started by men who wanted to share their hobby. They break even if not loose money until the owner gives up or dies. The passion for the product overshadows the passion for profits.

Now this is where Seth has it right... ish. If this guy was smart he would find a partner to get the coffee business done right. Then there would be a high profit activity to support the love of trains which this guy can focus on. Or he should specialize, then use the internet to reach those people wherever they live.

What I Am Called For

2008-03-06T22:47:00.004-05:00

Well actually I do not know why I am living in the fullest sense. I just heard a quote recently "perfect is worthless" on http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ Seth Godin's blog. You know that has changed my life and actions. I am now choosing good enough in some of my actions to not make it perfect. This does not mean I am choosing to be shoddy but I did start work making a model railroad even thought it will never be perfection in miniature.

So another of Seth's posts got me over to a video by Jan Chipchase at TED. http://www.ted.com/index.php/themes/view/id/28
I am rocked, and motivated. He tells a story about how the poor are using mobile phones as an informal wire transfer network. He talks about how the poor of the world are starting to have the same tools to connect to the world as the rich. How they are going around the systems that the rich and designers and companies set in place. It is amazing to me how the poor are able to boil down things to what mater.
I am an engineer, my career ability is to support and be part of the team that Jan and his counterparts lead. To take what he observes, what others dream, I develop, so others can build, and everyone will use. If I do my job right I become invisible. If I do my job wrong we all fail.
At the end of the video below Jan lays out 4 aspects of designing things for the future:
1) The big idea is only a big idea if it is part of BIG change (Truth is you can not design for big, big happens after an idea is let go.)
2) Small products move to everyone world wide, rich and poor (for me I worked last for a car company, a product that reached only a couple people. Well ok what I did affects everyone that buys any car that manufacture makes and that IS a lot of people, but not everyone in the world. Right now my product will affect at most a couple hundred directly and a million indirectly. WOW I never realized how important what I was doing was!!!)
3) No mater how well a product is designed as soon as it reaches the marketplace all the people out there will find better ways to use the product, different than intended.
4) The poor want to be part of the world, the conversations that are driving the direction of the world, they have something to say that transcends their lack of education, money, literacy, and so many us vs them things. They are still people who, when it all boils down, have relationships.

I am a stuff designer, that is who I am and what really gets my juices going. I love to be a part of the team that figures out this stuff. And this stuff ROCKS when it is kept simple so simple that it is hard to believe it has never been thought of before. Or like nokia that there is so much technology behind the device the shell belies in simplicity. It would rock even more to know I have stuff out there that the poor find use in, that means the whole world needs it, not the elite few who waste money and time.

In a 15 minute talk Jan covers so much more than the above, his thoughts on design, what is important and why, how delegation works, how innovation happens and trust. All as it relates to how I want to earn an income to support my family and my self. Watch his video to see into what I care about. To me this is a rally cry and a call to action and pride in my job and skills.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/190

Bright

2008-03-04T07:23:00.004-05:00

I do not think that a single picture out there can tell you how I feel right now But to give you a visual clue I submit this: No music is loud enough, pure enough for me right now. Oh how I long for 100% pure. Instead of being part of the pure white at the top I feel like I am just that little hint of color in the lower left corner.

Going To The Next Level

2008-03-03T07:18:00.005-05:00

Friday was Anna's convocation, we still are not sure if she is in preKG or LKG and going to LKG or UKG? What a hoot if the parents did not realize their kid got a midyear grade promotion. (Ok foundation is that Anna now sits on the LKG side of the room, way far from the preKG and her last report card said LKG not preKG...
I do know the guy bending over gave a great commencement speech, "Twinkle twinkle little star, no we do not have to look in the sky to find the stars, they are all right here." Nancy and I both said awe. I was glad to be able to be there, I got a bug that made me curling on the bed in pain, praying to feel better, and I did!
Thought saturday we hung low, good thing because Anna started not feeling good about noon, and Nancy that night. I ended up going to church in the morning alone. Again this sermon series was great, it hurt, I am quite mad and frustrated at my inlaws right now, this sermon quickly put me back where Christ wants me to be. And then after church...
Some friends dropped me off at Nugambakam Railway station so I could take the train to Saidapet. I noticed walking up to the station that an express was slowing to a stop, odd because usually they go through quite quick blowing their horn sounding like they are afraid they might hit someone.
The people on the overwalk and platform confirmed my worries. In a culture where the reset button is an option another followed through. It is interesting so see how in this culture where no one is certain of what is absolutely right almost everyone is confused, while I did not want to take a picture of the body, I thought about and chose not to photo the watchers on the platform. I saw no emotional reactions from anyone. Just standing and watching. By the time I got to Saidapet the express was passing me, going faster and blowing harder than ever.

I like what Nancy said, "It is pretty easy to not get hit by a train."

Sadly I am already forgetting what I saw, they long red cloth of the saree wound around the body parts, the guys pulling it to the side of the tracks, knowing it will take until morning for someone to remove it to a morgue. My local train arriving, me hopping on and going on my way.

Ultimate Intention -DeVern Fromke

2008-02-23T06:19:00.003-05:00

I have completed reading another book, this one was a tough read, it was started six months ago, and one sleepless night I pushed my way through the last ten chapters. It has some great content, but the author wrote the book for pastors who have attended seminary in the sixties or before. Words like 'philosophical rectification' made the book difficult to read with distractions (All of India with a 3 year old) around.
All the complaining out of the way... the question that the author is trying to explain is that God has a bigger goal in what this world and time and humanity is than most people admit to. Quoted from chapter 27 of the book: "The Father receives a vast family of Sons like the First Born. The Son receives a glorious Body for His expression. The Holy Spirit receives a temple of living stones for his Eternal Abode." Fromke insists that even Adam, before the fall of sin, was in need of Jesus in order to reach the full potential that God desires.
I like that idea, the kingdom of God is bigger and better than even Adam before the fall, when life was "good." Christ did not just die to restore us, but to go beyond and make better. Some say perfection was the garden, and we should desire that relationship with the Lord. But no, Jesus pointed to a new heaven and a new earth, a city, a place for those that choose to follow. "The least in the kingdom of God is better than the greatest on earth" Luke 7:28 That is amazing to me, refreshing to me, so often I feel that I am the least in the kingdom. I know I am not the greatest on earth, by either the worlds standards, nor God's.
In my own words what DeVern Fromke is trying to say is that the world and time is like baking a cake. God took the good stuff, flour, water, sugar, eggs. And through the messed up world of sin, time, and personal choice is making a cake for himself. We have the choice if we are going to be part of that cake, to go through the hardship of doing what he wants or we are going to be hard, a shell, to live life easy, if a little cracked up by the happenings of life. Only later the shells and waste will be thrown out, only the cake will be kept.
If you are trying to figure out why in the world a perfect God ever wanted to make an imperfect world, then read this book. As you move forward it will help you see the world through the three faceted lens that God sees it through.

Consider Carefully

2008-02-17T22:53:00.005-05:00

"Therefore consider carefully how you listen." Luke 8:18

How should I listen? What is the right way, what is the wrong way? Lets go back in Luke to see what Jesus said before this.

16"No one lights a lamp and hides it in a jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. 17For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. 18Therefore consider carefully how you listen.

What I am listening to is a light to what I already know. In Tim Stevens book he talks about how we filter things. What we read in the TRUTH (Bible) is a light on our filter. The dust, the things we keep hidden, the underlying desires for what we do, what we listen to and how we respond to that.

Therefore consider carefully how you listen.

Read the Bible in a way that you are willing to change, to sweep away the dust, and strengthen what is weak.

18Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him." 19Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you."
21He replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."

If you think and work at improving your filter you will be given more on top of what you have been given. And then if you act on what you are Jesus' mother and brothers. Note how this passage starts with Light, moves to listening and thinking, then on to actions expected.

What worries me, is that working at GM, and from my Masters, it has been proven that one bad step for a company is worth about seven good steps. It is not one step back one step forward. If you do one bad thing, it will take seven good actions of equal weight to get back where you were, then one more to improve. One bad speck in your filter, leading to one bad action, will corrupt the whole system. It will take seven times the work to clean the lens, to get to starting over, then still there is the need to move forward. "Even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."

(all passages from NIV using Biblegateway.com)

Friday Is Tie Day

2008-02-15T06:45:00.004-05:00

When I worked for General Motors I use to be countercultural and save wearing a tie for fridays, a day we were told could be considered more casual.

I was told to bring a tie to India for those rare cases it would be needed.
I saw it in my dresser languishing unused.
I wore it on friday.
I was laughed at.

Now a month later.
It is Friday again.
Six of the 12 males in the office today are wearing ties, myself included.
I bought my tie in Thailand, for $1, the most I have ever paid for a tie.

"Not Far From The Kingdom Of God"

2008-02-04T00:27:00.000-05:00

Mark 12:34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

........What is close to the Kingdom of God?

Mark 12:33 "To love him [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

So often when studing this passage my teachers have focused on the the red letter verses of Mark 12:29-31. Not on the response of the teacher of the law.

As Nancy had said our heart broke in ChainMai seeing the long neck people. Living a life on show, actors on a stage they really don't want to be on to eak out a few dollars. They are away from their home they love, the peace and traditions they crave. How they need love. If I was called to long term overseas mission I think I would be involved at a resort, a place for christians to relax and see the world as God sees it. And to reach people like this teen, as real people. Nancy and I could feel her tension, she fully represents her people, her internal struggle showed, the older women were broken, the younger ones did not know yet.

But for now while I would love to show this teen God's love, she is not my neighbor, right now so many others are. Help me not to become so used to my neighbors that my heart does not break like it does for that teen.

Back to Mark 12:
I wonder why the man is only close to the Kingdom of God, what is between where he is and where he needs to go?

I wonder what are my burnt offerings and sacrifices.

I cry out to God that I want to love Him more.

Both verses taken from the NIV Bible.

Prayer

2008-02-01T16:25:00.000-05:00

For some time I have been unhappy with my prayer life. For the most part my prayers boil down to "Lord codle me like a baby"

Reading Tim Chesters post about prayer gives me hope.

http://timchester.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/lessons-on-prayer-from-the-indian-church/

It is short, go over, take the time to read it. At the same time make Tim's blog one of your favorites, for me he is one that I find worthy of the 10 blogs I watch regularly.

Pop Goes the Church

2008-01-22T02:02:00.000-05:00

I finished the manuscript of 'Pop Goes the Church' and it has been hard to post about it because I had written in so many room for improvement notes that I was not sure how I could be positive. After reading what some others have written I do think it was a good book. Better yet it did open my eyes spiritually into an area that I have been keeping under lock and key in a this is the law way. And it is not one of God's laws but my own. It was pointed out to me years ago that Music and Movies are categorically the same as drugs and alcohol for what they do to a mood. In the future I will be paying more attention to how the current movies and top ten songs etc are setting the mood of the whole population. Like the unity of 'God bless this country' after 9/11 it is happening, the media world is setting up lots of people to be ready to hear spiritual issues, our job is to be ready to respond as Christ wants us too.

In my first post about the book I said I felt like I was going into 'big dog' leadership crowd. Honestly I think the Lord has been leading me that way for a long time* (15 years.) To give a mental picture I feel like a freshman at college who just left his know it all world of high school and has now realized that I know there is a lot of stuff I do not know. Many of the leaders are working on their PHDs they have been at this college a long time. God has not given me the curriculum or the grading system and so much else I only know what to do today.

Back to the book. When it comes out it will be a very good book, if you are a church attender and wonder why your church is changing its ways this book will give you some insight as to why and a foundation to stand on for when you walk up to your leadership to ask questions. Or maybe the opposite is true, you want your church to change but it is not moving yet. It may also scare you at the same time, it did me, it was not until the last chapter of the book that I was positive that Tim was not calling for each Church to reach people in the same way his church does. Each one of us needs to have discernment, because of my 'church shopping' experience I know sometimes leadership of a church will try to change in order to steal sheep from the faster growing church over there. God has a real place for each Church body, you need to know where yours is, it may not be ultra trendy, seeker friendly but much more Conservative, but it should always be an open door to those who have not accepted Christ as their savior.

*Ok this is where I am scared! if Tim posts my comment on his blog many of those leaders will be looking at this web page. Given that I read many of their webpages regularly I think that they will laugh at me, my hope is some will pray for me that I will follow God's will. And if it God's will one of them will start watching me and might be a part of my what's next issue next July.

Work

2008-01-16T03:14:00.000-05:00

The Kingdom of God is like...

A man hiring workers...

Having just read through Mathew I have leaned that the Kingdom of God parables talk about a couple things. 1 Working, i need to work as my part of the kingdom. 2 be ready, I need to be ready as my part of the kingdom. 3 black box, I am not the only player in kingdom of God lots of other things are going on that I do not understand.

This week it has been the reality that work is an important part of being part of the Kingdom Of God that has been my lesson.

Pop Goes the Church

2008-01-16T02:24:00.000-05:00

I have been chosen to review a book. Tim Stevens has chosen me to be one of the 10 plus to review his new manuscript, Pop Goes The Church. I am stoked, honored, humbled and maybe almost overwhelmed. Tim is one of the guys out there thinking big about how to turn the Bible and Jesus and that Church (building and people) into something we can use the other 6.5 days of our week. Just like when Anna is with the big kids and she feels like she is a big kid too... that is how I feel. I may feel like a big kid... but maybe I am not fully, or maybe I am and do not know it? Where is the mirror so I can figure that one out.

One Day Book

2008-01-15T23:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I read one of my Christmas presents. My mom sent me 90 Minutes in Heaven. What an interesting book, it took me almost all day to ready, with several breaks for food and fun with Anna.

If you get a chance I would say read the book, it is about Don Piper who dies in an auto accident, and 90 min later has a pulse and is responsive. His experience in heaven is a small part of the book, most of it is about his year long recovery and how he was able to help people afterwards who were in a similar situation.

I will admit that parts of the book made me cry, and I understand perfectly his depression. And for me personally I think it was a good time for me to read the book, to reset my spiritual 'walk' which has felt stalled the past month. While my knowledge has been growing this past month my choices have been centered on my instant gratification, not what is best long term. Even though I am praying to God to give me a good long term life.

Like Don how I long to go to Heaven, to experience the ultra reality there. Some quotes from the book. 'both heaven and hell are more real than anything we experience on earth' 'when in Heaven you know who is there and who will be coming but you do not know who is not there or not coming' Oh how I long to be washed of all my sin and just be good like I really want to be yet find it so hard to do. And then I think of all the good people I know, ones who I have not talked about Christ with... why should I be allowed in heaven if I am not giving them a chance to go?

My Old Nest

2008-01-09T00:42:00.000-05:00

Today I happen to chance upon these two photos of what was at one time my living room. Oh the wave of sadness... I really liked what I did to make this area look good. Last summer I did have the chance to see what the new owners of the home did with this room. The red walls is now tea colored, there is a hospital bed in place of the couch (with hope Jen is doing well enough that that is gone) The counters were a little more messy... OK the house actually looked lived in, they were doing a good job of enjoying in their own way what I enjoyed... esp given that Jen had a major issue with her back. But selfishly I miss this room just a little... it was a place. And sadness and fear come because I am six months from not having a clue where I will be... this was my 'nest' but it will not be my 'nest'.

Pea do

2008-01-05T03:28:00.000-05:00

I am letting Anna play with play dough. When i was getting it out she started saying 'pea do pea do' I asked her what that was, she responded 'it is a funny way of saying play dough'.

It is funny enough that Anna is speaking with a UK or a Australia accent since spending a couple days with people from those countries, but the fact of her slurring words and knowing it...

Never before having my own child did I ever realize that children are so smart at such a young age.

Hindu Converts

2007-12-26T05:45:00.000-05:00

This is interesting...

http://www.missioninaction.org.au/?p=297

Unga to Inga

2007-12-21T02:26:00.000-05:00

Currently Mike is doing a series on the Kingdom of God at Ashraya. Then I am also exposed to writings such as Rob action plan.

These thoughts have me thinking, many times 'the kingdom of heaven' is used in the bible. Do I really understand what that means for me. As a first start I checked wikipedia. According to Jesus, the Kingdom of God is within (or among) people[3], it is approached through understanding,[4] and entered through acceptance like a child,[5] spiritual rebirth,[6] and doing the will of God.[7] It is a kingdom peopled by the righteous[8] and is not the only kingdom [9].

That very much sounds to me like something here now. Yet most of my education points to that really it is all about heaven... 'in my house there are many rooms' but in truth Jesus asked his disciples to go out and teach about the kingdom of heaven before he died... his death was the door to eternal life the door that I have chosen to go through when I die. And to prove it I will live in Jesus' kingdom of heaven now, while I live.

Sometime in the future the kingdom of heaven will be the only kingdom. But for now for me it is here... how do I live in this kingdom?

Gifting

2007-12-11T23:42:00.000-05:00

Right now in our office we are doing a secret santa between different people, a little gift every day. Right now I have an apple on my desk. Pushing all my pessimism out the window I say I am happy, I am glad I have an apple, a gift, apples taste good, and I will peal the skin off and eat it... later, right now I am looking at it and smiling that I got a gift.

Some of the people are trying to figure out who is giving to them, others asking why they do not get something each morning... I am happy to receive. I am happy to give, disappointed when I see my gift given to another, that tells me I do not know my charge very well. :(

For several years I and I know many others have been trying to figure out this whole holiday gift giving thing. Frustrated by giving to each and every person and getting back in return. The economy is hinged on this season and the need to give and be given to... even if there is no heart in the gift.***

How can we say I love and respect you so much I did not buy you anything. Yet I did buy something for everyone else around you? I just sent a box to the states it has a gift in it for everyone but my father. We went out of our way to buy a gift for a seven year old because her brother had something in the box. But I have not given to my dad.

What if that was the case for me.** I am such a pathetic person unable to receive a gift well, Nancy is thinking of getting me a carved elephant that I kinda want, unlike many other elephants this one has both the body and head hollowed out so the whole body is a lace of stone (all others i have seen have been the body only.) Last night Nancy flat out asked if I would be happy if I got it. The truth is no... i did not buy it then because the craftsmanship was not what I desired, for me to appreciate it I would need to go see many other carved elephants to know that the craftsmanship is on par. Then and only then would I really appreciate the gift.

So I am stuck in between a rock and a hard place. I have trouble giving good gifts, I have trouble getting gifts.

Now one thing I plan to do is give to our friends in the slum, thinking many articles of clothing and other stuff... but will that be good? It is to those that can not give back equally. But will I give the right stuff?

Someone needs to write a manual on how to give and how to receive. I can tell you it would be a best seller. It would be even better if it was a Christ based book. I know I would buy it.

***Actually there is some heart in just trying... that only works when received well
**That happened last year, we drew names and while I got every gift I was supposed to I was dumbfounded by not getting anything from my brother.
*There is even a movie I might see if I was in the states.

The cost

2007-12-02T10:49:00.000-05:00

I have had a cold this past week... coughing a lot esp when I lay down. When Nancy coughs like that I ask her to sleep in another room. I asked if she wanted me to she said no, but loving her I went out to the living room to sleep... after a couple of days I realized that sleeping on my stomach was the best for reducing the number of coughing fits. But the coughing fits still kept me up during the night. Giving me plenty of time to think, and mourn all the 'troubles' in my life. Being a pessimist I was having trouble remembering good stories I could tell my daughter about my past but i could remember lots of 'sins' I was not proud of. This made me more sad, then all these things that are so much frustration about being in another country. And the changes that are happening in my heart. So much 'cost' in my life, not much is easy right now like i 'used' to have.

This is when I went to lay next to Nancy who was reading her Bible: she read aloud "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." That sure did lift my mood. Nancy and I then had a conversation about good stories of my life... she prattled off eight one right after another. That further lifted my spirits.

A year ago I read Luke Chapter 14 about considering the cost of following Jesus. And I knew full well that following God to India would bring challenges upon me. And now here they were... not even big ones and i was almost ready to call it quits. But God quickly showed me the light.

I considered the cost, I chose, now I need to follow through with my choice, even when I have to travel through the 'muck' that makes up the path of this journey.

Is it all about relationships?

2007-11-19T06:37:00.000-05:00

In college I drew a series of poster sized drawings, in the center was a 2 foot tall stick figure, he was hanging by one hand onto the index finger of realistic hand that spread across the top. Along the bottom on one was water, on another fire... Last in the series is the stick figure curled up laying on the hand, a much safer place.

This past week my definition of culture shock and change was revised. What I thought was culture is only American vs Indian. But my culture is so much more. There is also my corporate culture way of living vs. a Jesus trust centered way of living. That means there is so much more that is available in my life for change. My organized way of living and thinking and working is also open game for change, all of me is open for change.

I am again hanging from the hand.

I was also reminded again this week that I let go of my goals I need to not make new ones.

I need to hold onto the hand...

I think the biggest thing that I am thinking now is all of life is about relationships. First with God, through Jesus, then on into other people.

...the Hand.

I am also thinking that I need to filter all my Living Theology thoughts with the Bible, find concepts in the Bible that support what I think. Not just verses out of context but passages in context.

...the Hand.

Messages from God

2007-11-06T00:38:00.000-05:00

I have been aware for some time that at different times I am bombarded by a single theam of learning. These come at me in songs, my Bible reading, sermons, and life in general.

A while back it was 'Wait upon the Lord'

Last week it was being a christian is hard, the path is narrow and it has many hills and valleys and rocks on it. So many times we tell future Christians about the joy and good but do not let them know the hardship and cost. -What I have titled my Blog

This week it is the poor as supposed to be among us, our friends. With Rob Wegner's blog post being one of the sources.

I really need to start noteing these down consistanly so I can go back and see what the Lord is teaching me in my life over time.

A good map

2007-11-06T00:14:00.000-05:00

Here in Chennai I have a great tool called the Eicher city map of Chennai. This 185 page book is great to help me know where i am in this strange land where most people do not even know themselves.

I am finding out that most people do not know how to read maps here. After looking it the book they will finally say 'well i don't think the book is accurate my house is about here.' I find it best to just go outside, walk up the street to the left a ways then the right looking at the landmarks. Then I will look at the book and without fail I find that the book is indeed very accurate. Their house does indeed exist on the map, and where they pointed was off by a couple blocks or more.

Do I treat the Bible like that? Saying that it is close but not accurate? Only to find out later that it is really very accurate?

The New Tithe

2007-10-10T08:20:00.000-04:00

Does the tithe always have to be money or is it more?

In the bible Abraham gave a 10th of all he had. Sheep, cattle, slaves everything of value to him.

But now, in America, what is most valuable. Money has lost its value, 10% of what we have is a lot, it will hurt some, but after a little while it is just part of the bills.

What has the most value is time. We value it much more than money. And maybe for the idea of a tithe to work we should not only give that cash, that bill to God, but also think about giving 10% of your time. 2.4 hours a day to God. No not the sleeping hours, but the waking ones. Use the time in service, in Bible reading, as a sacrifice to God.

Granger Community church has Second Saturday... 5 hours of service on the second Saturday of the month. Easy in Easy out. There are bible reading plans for 15-20-30 min a day.

Would you do like the idea of iFIX and go fix problems in your community?

Would this work? or is it too much? Is this the next big thing, would it be a flash in the pan fad of Christianity? Could it work long term in affluent prone areas?

Bringing Heaven To Earth... Now

2007-10-10T03:09:00.000-04:00

First I need to admit I am not up and fully educated on the idea of the 'emergent church' or what ever else it wants to be called or will be called. I know that there are people out there that see the way "Christianity" is done to be wrong, to need to change, because the world changed or because Christians just focused too hard in the wrong area and neglected what is more important.

The shift I see is present in America (living only two months away from there is changing my point of view) and most of the talk seams to be from those that live a life unable to zoom out to see the big picture, or who's big picture has anything other than the way they live as so surreal that it is fiction.

The truth be told the majority of the world knows nothing beyond themselves... like dare I say three blind men walking up to different parts of an elephant and describing it. In Christ following and Christian Church there is a need for change, and there is change happening. I am starting to see / feel the pull of that change. I am watching some of the leaders and those that closely follow them. Like a landslide the first crumbs have broken off, the larger piece are following now, and the whole mass of land behind it is starting to shift. Soon we will all be heading down the hill for who knows how long. And the stop at the bottom, will the land mass be in one piece still, or will it be such a jumble that it looks completely different?

To get more concrete in my thoughts about the change i am seeing. There is a shift from the idea that being a Christian is a life insurance plan of eternal significance to importance to how we live now. "how to bring heaven to earth now" is the question. Increasingly this has a environmental stewardship answer.

Chad Hall is talking about it here.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2007/cln71008.html

Rob Wegner talked about it here.
http://entermission.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/if-everyone-on-.html

Rob Bell and Matt Krick and others talked about it at some Mars Hill Bible Church messages this past summer.
http://www.marshill.org/teaching/index.php number 444

But really how much of the Bible is about gardening (or other aspects of taking care of the earth.) Most of the bible is about people, and how people interact with God and other people. I mean even my two year old understands that. This is also part of shift that I am seeing, but where it is going and why is much harder to put a finger on. So any other change that happens needs to support the real importance of relationships. The goal is to make the earth livable not so we can live, but so we can interact with others. And the church as special directions to how to do that. The whole culture of church needs to change. The question of what Christians do between the point they accept Christ and they die will have a different answer soon.

Giving the Future

2007-09-26T02:59:00.000-04:00

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/09/atms_automatic.html

Above is an interesting link to churches solution to the cashless society, add ATM machines that can be used to transfer money in the lobby of the church.

I would like to see a study about if giving at churches is down because America is becoming a cashless society.

Read the comments also, they help fill out the response, worries, and reality of this type of giving.

Amazing Things

2007-09-13T07:20:00.000-04:00

Each day while in Chennai I see some amazing things. Most of the time I can not get a good photo because of some reason (gone already, too dark, camera is at home, just not a good time to take a picture)

Examples:
When Nancy and I were on the train Saturday a girl came in and did some gymnastic tricks (she looked about an American 5 so an was about 10 years old) if I took a picture she would have pestered me to high heaven for money and I did not want to pay 5 to 50 rs for a picture, (I would have paid if she did it out on the platform where i had good light and no movement of train)

I saw a boy about 3 ft tall riding a full size bike by sticking his leg through the triangle... bungi says that is common here in India.

seeing things like this makes me want to have a video recorder attached to my ear the whole time we are here. I hope I keep my eyes open to what is strange and different where ever I am in the world.... let it not be common that my two year old knows to pray for real people and not her stuffed animals, for others not herself. And when you ask her to sing she softly signs Jesus love me.

What things are worth seeing in this life for you?

grumpy

2007-09-06T01:26:00.000-04:00

I am rather grumpy today... not sure why.

Just wanted to share.

Ryan

God Is Green

2007-08-22T01:32:00.000-04:00

Just recently Mars Hill Bible Church had a great series titled God is Green. I strongly recommend you take the time to listen to the series. (the easy way is to use Itunes to download past sermons.)

Go find it and listen, start with July first and listen the other 4... maybe you can not do it in one day as each is 45 to 55min.

http://www.marshill.org/

If you do not want Itunes go get the MP3 from their website. http://www.marshill.org/teaching/index.php

On a personal note:
I am starting to overcome the changes and such of moving to India and getting back to intentionally living and thinking about my theology. Note this is not theology that uses words with suffixes of -fication and -uration that would be talked in some university that those becoming preachers attend. But I am talking about my daily walk with the Lord, how I LIVE my THEOLOGY. Not theoretical theology, but LIVING THEOLOGY. This series at Mars Hill, and most information by Rob Bell has practical living theology and I strongly recommend listening to this series (or at least the Towers and Tomatoes, July 22nd) to understand.

For example talking about walking over driving at 35 min in. Here in Chennai walking is much more common, so is utilizing a vehicle to its fullest. That SUV you drive all alone to work in the morning, would have 12 people in it in India. If it is just you you would use your motor bike.

This is the 3rd time I have listened to this one sermon... not because I did not get it, but so that I will get it.

What Is Inside You?

2007-08-20T01:39:00.000-04:00

With traveling to India, getting settled and all my mind has been full of the mundane like trying to find food that will not empty out my system. After siphoning water from the sweet water tank to the bore well tank (which seams to have run dry) so we could again shower and flush toilets I saw a coconut that had fallen from a local tree. 4 hours of hacking with a dull machete and then a pocket knife I had the softball sized nut away from the volleyball sized husk...

So many spiritual discussions could be made talking about a coconut as example...

Fast Forward

2007-08-07T03:29:00.000-04:00

Life is happening very quick right now. Much like this picture I took of the skyline of Mumbai on our exit and travels to Chennai. Much too long of a shutter.

I can not wait until I have the time to sit back relax and digest what is happening.

No the pace is not too fast, it is just right. But add in the mix of a 30 month old and the stress can just get too high for the moment.

35 checkouts

2007-07-25T21:02:00.001-04:00

Ok 35 is a guess, I did not count at the other end. This is the checkout area of a local store, but seeing this makes me wonder if we will see anything like this in India. We purchased our $30 worth of items at #10. Yes only 3, 6, 8, and 10 plus another 4 at the other end were open. To think this place can be busy enough (Christmas) that every station would be open.

I would love to hear what people think, esp those from other countries.

Razzmatazz or Ragamuffins?

2007-07-23T12:54:00.000-04:00

I have been trying to think what to post for a while now, rather than talk about my jitters of getting ready to go to India, none of which stay still long enough for me to write about...

Then I found this: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/ and the July 23rd post Razzmatazz or Ragamuffins? Two non-Christians paid to visit churches are impressed with charity not facilities.

Go read it. Go read it. Go read it.

Thank You
Ryan

July 23, 2007
Razzmatazz or Ragamuffins?

Two non-Christians paid to visit churches are impressed with charity not facilities.
It’s been done before. A non-Christian is paid to attend church and provide their honest feedback about the experience. The latest rendition of this experiment is occurring north of the border in Canada. Christian talk show host Drew Marshall has paid two college students, one male and one female, to attend five different churches in the Toronto area. Their observations can be read on Marshall’s website, but below are a few highlights from their excursion into Christendom.

The two students visited one of the fastest growing mega-churches in Toronto. Like many megas it has positioned itself as “the church for people who aren’t into church.” On this Sunday the pastor spoke about wealth and possessions. What did Drew Marshall’s guinea pigs think?
Why is it that I should not seek out possessions and money, but the church is permitted to do just that? Does taking 10% of every congregant’s income not count as seeking out money? Why should the institution be rich, and the congregation not? If you really believe you should be living the aesthetic life led by Christ and his apostles, why aren’t you doing it? If money and possessions aren’t important, why aren’t you meeting to discuss the meaning of Christ’s ideas and life in the local park? Notwithstanding the need to broadcast to your rather large congregation, and obviously you’d have to come up with a solution during the winter months, but really: why the son et lumiere? I found the medium more than a bit out of whack with the message.

Which brings me to another point: all that razzmatazz kind of unsettles me. We live in a culture where distraction is often misdirection - like a magician who gets you to look at his left hand while he’s disappearing something with his right. I found myself wondering why a group that liked its preacher so straightforward felt most at home in a medium of flashing lights and sound. Read more.

The paid church visitors also made a stop at the Sanctuary, a downtown congregation with deep involvement in the community—particularly with the homeless and poor. The Sanctuary provides free meals and cloths as well as medical care to those in need. One visitor’s first impression was telling:

I could tell then and there we had found what this experiment was set out to accomplish, a church that saw past the money, power and the heighten sense of moral superiority that we have grown accustomed to. Charity, real charity. About time.
He continues…

I was floored, for close to a month now I have been told of all the wonderful things the Christian church provides without any physical evidence of its truth, but here it is, in the flesh. I have to smile, we have traveled to the city’s massive churches where thousands worship and yet we find what we are looking for in a turnout of 35 on Sunday. Read more.

Overall, both Taylor and Sabrina (the non-Christians) gave the Sanctuary overwhelmingly positive marks—far more favorable than any other church they visited. Drew Marshall later tried to identify what set the Sanctuary apart. His conclusion:

This is the only Church where the majority of time, finances and energy is NOT spent on the Sunday service. At Sanctuary, it actually would have been unfair to only score them on their Sunday service, the smallest part of what they do. Read more.

What is the big lesson for church leaders? I’m not sure, and I’m hesitant to make any sweeping conclusions based on the opinion of just two people. However, Taylor and Sabrina do force us to ask an important question. Why does the majority of most churches' resources get funneled back into Sunday morning (facilities, staff, programs)? And, in a culture growing increasingly suspicious of “razzmatazz” is a spectacular worship production still the best way to draw people to God? (Has it ever been the best way?)
Posted by UrL on July 23, 2007

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Real and Unreal

2007-07-18T15:17:00.000-04:00

Bungi is once again thinking deeply. Trying to figure out why if so much of this world is intangible why people favor the tangible. She wondered what a non-Asian view would be...

Now usually I am out of sync with her and her friends thoughts. So I will try without being trying.

But already I am stuck, do I base it all on money, or all on science, or try to define all things intangible?

I think for an average person in the USA science and education has stripped the world view of anything other than tangible. As that is where our faith has been placed in science, testing physics, engineering.

And with money you can buy enough stuff to fill your mind with tangible things, computers, cars, televisions, cell phones, games, furniture, plants, food. A human brain can only think about so much and fill it with all things 'real' you do not have time for the rest. So our education, and our money has helped us ignore the intangible.

What is left to be intangible? Stress and other emotional states? Gosh we can take physical pills and change our emotional states so no I guess that is really real. What is left intangible? God? yes that is about it, and the sad truth is science looks at Him and says 'any thing you can to I can do better' (For example look at transportation, the best God gave was a horse, science got us rockets!)

But what if this world is actually a lot more intangible? what is the proportion? Is it 50:50 tangible to intangible, or 60:40 or 40:60 or 99:01 or 01:99? WOW if 1% of everything was tangible, 99% would be beyond our grasp. What is in that 99%, God, life, feelings, other spirits... many people do try to grasp some of that, but most are happy with the physical.

Lets take one example of intangible, life, you can have a living person, alive, and they stop breathing, dead. All the physical is still there. But the intangible is gone, and that is more than them moving blood, and air. All the thoughts they have, all intangible, are they all gone or do they still exist in the intangible part of the world.

Gina talks about it in terms of music, add more and more chords, the music gets better and better sounding. That is what the world is like, but maybe we only hear some of the chords, the part we hear incomplete, sounds horrible.

Oh but to answer Bungi's question, why favor the tangible? because we have been taught too, esp me as an engineer. And we can afford to, esp me as a rich person.

My Iphone Post

2007-07-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

The new Iphone blend now that is amazing. Go watch the video and come back.

Notice how long the machine stayed on? That is some good engineering.

Missional Church

2007-07-12T11:33:00.001-04:00

There is an organization called EnterMission, all about 'getting out of the seat and into the story.' They have some pod casts and I took the opportunity to listen to one this morning. I took notes then went back and filled in some gaps with my thoughts... sorry the two are fairly intermingled.

This podcast is called "Highway on ramp how to build entries into ministries" a conversation with Jack Magruder and Rob Wegener, who both work at Granger Community Church.

Like a real highway they want every event to have an exit ramp and entrance ramp. People need to know how to get in and people want to know that they can get out before they get in. Most people will not do something unless they know all the risks, and most people are very risk adverse. Unknown is a very large risk.

The church must create meaningful environments for projects, and show that doing missions is for everyone.

Missional activity is for everyone. Everyone can be missional no matter where they are spiritually from the 'confirmed atheist' to the 'wild eyed zelots 'From you have only erratic time to you can give your entire life.

The traditional way at a traditional church is: 'I know the church does stuff but I do not know how to do it with them.' Or maybe you need to be more of a christian before you become involved. Or projects would be fly in fix it and fly out, feeling good but what it feels like where you went is like a mosquito bite.

GCC chooses it's project to be long term to keep shining the light of God on one spot. They think about what they are doing, where they are doing, and why they are doing.

But there is an on ramp for everyone from the first timer to the long term guy. The mission opportunities that are provided fit in a variety of locations. Think of a x and y grid up and down is location of ministry Horizontal is the commitment level required.

Vertical:
In Church
Local a few minutes away
Nearby a couple hours away
Ends of the earth A remote Indian village

Horizontal:
Access ministries
Project ministries
Ongoing Team ministries
Leadership ministries

GCC has access ministries in the church and local and they have leadership ministries in the church to the ends of the earth. It is not 4 separate types but 16.

More detail of the ministry types
Access: have easy entry points for people, overcome the fear of doing it eliminate every single barrier
'Keep it Sassy': simple accessible and scalable
simple show up no tools planning needed
accessible, don't need to do anything special anyone can do it no mater their theology knowledge or physical ability
scalable be ready for 4 or 40 people to show up Example is GCC second Saturday
Know that it is meaningful to society.
Access leads to 'what's next?' 'what is deeper?'
And because access ministry come in to support what is being done through a ministry team they can see that.

Project ministries are short term like to inner city Chicago or India first timers: limited in time and scope, a day a weekend, a week, a couple planning sessions, do it, then the exit ramp. But again tied into the long term Ongoing Teams. For example a bailout for a poor inner city Chicago family, after they complete some training with the ongoing ministry a team will come in and do an extreme makeover to where they live.

Moving deeper:
The foundation for the above ministries is the Ministry teams are ongoing. To be involved require a commitment of at least a year, they need you to be there, they depend on you being there.

And last is leadership ministries:
Jack and Rob may be at the top but most teams are lead by others and they don't micromanage others lead the ongoing ministries of GCC.

Also someone may be a leader in one area and at access in another area, a great greeter but never traveled to India.

They want people to go from access to leadership. They want people to develop, always taking the next step.

Mission Possible

2007-07-11T19:36:00.000-04:00

The full title of the book is Mission Possible - World Missions In The 1980s by Marian and Robert Schindler.

Why would I review and recommend a book written 20 years ago? Because it shows that some of the 'new' ideas now were thought of long ago, some of the material is dated, but most is timeless.

This book is a step back, while it has personal examples the goal is to look at the big picture. God's plan, why go, why send, why raise up missionaries, history of missions, and future changes.

The books concludes with the story of a missionary meeting a Chinese woman after missionaries were let back in. Her first words to him were 'let me hear you pray' ...

The whole reason for missions is to have a relationship with Jesus, prayer is such an important part. Christianity can flourish without buildings, clean water, bibles, hospitals, schools, and all the other things we take for granted. Christianity is not Christianity without prayer.

A Last Goodby

2007-07-06T13:22:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday my friend Brandon passed away. He had been fighting a brain tumor for the past 18 months. He was on a ventilator for the past year, bedridden, weak but not unresponsive. Brandon and Kerstin, his wife have a daughter, Cora, just 2 months younger than our Anna, 28 months.

We drove across the state for the funeral on Thursday morning, it was at the graveside. Many friends and coworkers of his were there. Anna and Cora were off behind the group, pointing out flowers and flags to Nancy and Cora's daycare worker for most of the service. Then at the end the girls came around. About the time that they were lowering the casket.

I was amazed that while Cora was not happy with dad going down into the hole she did not temper-tantrum. What she did do will leave an impression on me for the rest of my life, and will bring tears to my eyes. After the casket was down and everyone was returning to their cars she knelt down next to the hole and looked down, saying "Daddy, Daddy," from her questioning tone of voice I think she was wondering why something so valuable was being placed so far down into a hole.

Kerstin knelt next to her for a moment then they got up and also went away.

Strong Willed?

2007-07-02T12:20:00.000-04:00

Anna is now 2-1/2. You know I never really knew before how smart kids were. I mean she can go to the bathroom. I always thought little ones went potty, you know that thing in the yard with flowers sticking out (flower pot.)

I was told yesterday that Anna is strong willed. And really I wonder about that. I laugh off most of her stubbornness and make sure my firm rules really matter. She is to not go in the road, no hitting, things like that. I give her respect for things that do not matter, what shirt she wears (though if she does not want to get dressed I just say OK you may stay in the bedroom.) I try to teach her what she wants to learn, parts of a tree when we are laying in the shade of one for example.

I was watching someone interact with her, growing frustrated trying to get this 30 month old to do and say what they wanted... you know I think if the reverse was happening Anna asking them to do exactly what she wanted Anna would be as frustrated as Elmo in his world. (FYI most things in Elmo's crayon drawn world do not respect that little red fuzz at all.) Yes Anna is independent, herself, and if strong willed means that she knows she is worthy of respect, then yes she is strong willed, and that is OK.

Watch Out For The Chipmunk

2007-06-21T23:05:00.001-04:00

What does a conversation with God sound like to you?

For me it is odd because it is a talk in my own head with my own voice. So now if I hear something did I think it or did God place it there... and no God does not say thee thou and use kings english, I have had responses to my questions as 'yea dude' and 'rock' IE it is in my own voice, my own words. And as I already hold conversations with myself knowing the difference takes great discernment.

Are you worried yet about Ryan being crazy? I am! That is why I try to test what I hear via 1 John 4.

I took the opportunity yesterday to go behind the house and walk through the woods. My main purpose was to pray. For myself, my future, India, Growing Opportunity staff and clients, those that are supporting us. I reached a place where I was just standing praying by name for people that I should call about our needed support. "...and for John."
"Watch out for the chipmunk"
A deer 50 feet behind me snorts and runs off snorting again and again... not to happy to see me in the woods
"that was not a chipmunk!" my heart racing now
"yea if I said deer you would have freaked out"

And that is my most recent conversation with God... what was yours?

Column vs Row Thinking

2007-06-15T15:45:00.001-04:00

This is an interesting video on talking about why we need to do something about global warming.

See all three of his videos here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=wonderingmind42

I think that this important to think about But the theory behind his argument is what I like. Column vs row thinking. I am developing an idea I call 'Living theology'. I guess Living Theology is the action a person takes, but true theology is debating the rows.

If this same method was used for Jesus, what would the results be?

Wisdom From Mom

2007-06-13T13:26:00.000-04:00

One of the things I remember from my mother is that she used to always joke about when her birthday was. Like many women she would be off by a couple years. But unlike most it was not that she said 39 at 50 but 60 and 50. By doing this she tended to look 10 years younger than her said age.

I was thinking how the same is true for clothing. To many people chose to wear something one size smaller than they are. The result... yup they may be proud to be wearing a size smaller but everyone looking on sees growth. By wearing something slightly larger the assumption is then that weight is being lost.

In each case you did not change, but because you changed the frame of reference you were able to sell yourselves in good light.

Now when I talked to Nancy about this she was not happy. It is her opinion that a person should be real, say their real age, admit their real size, be real, let the false marketing be done by the marketers for those products we buy.

God's Interaction

2007-06-10T19:14:00.000-04:00

A discussion on Bungi's site about luck got me thinking. I went sleep last night trying to figure out how active God is in our lives.

When good things happen it could be attributed to luck or blessings, depending on how responsible God is in what happens to us.

But is God that directly involved in our lives? Does God have to be there for all good things to happen? .....is God there when all bad things happen or is he not there?

I think God is around me always. But is he guiding every move like a many stringed marionette?
No. If that was true we would not have freewill.

For example lets look at how I interact with Anna, who is 30 months old. I do not guide her every step, I do not catch her every fall, I do not place every M&M on the table that she finds (though I do place some.) For God to be responsible for all our luck he would have to be the one placing each M&M for us to find. But I do not think he does, some of it does just happen.

Now the challenge:
If luck happens and we thank God for it - that is good.
If blessing happens and we attribute it to luck - God may not be happy with our ignorance.

Choices

2007-06-09T16:28:00.000-04:00

A week ago Dave gave me his list of news and blogging websites he watches via Google reader. Instantly I went from reading updates from six sites to 156. About 200 posts or more a day.
This was to many sites, 1000 posts a week or more. So this week I cull the sites, the first 25 were easy, It took a lot of work to get down to 100, then I was on a roll and deleted left and right to 60. Then slowly last night I looked at past posts for those sites with the hand on the delete button, Now I am down to 50 sites.
I had no new items to read last night at 10pm. Now, 18 hours latter I checked again, there was 24 updates, they took me 1 hour to read, even skipping several of them.

So over this week of reading what was important? A couple things were funny, a couple things were cute, and a couple were thought provoking. And I remember about 5 things of the 1000 updates from the week.

(Guess what Google reader does not have search capability on the reader site! WOW! else there would be 5 links right here.)

The most important of those five for me is an article talking about choosing each morning which 3 productive things you WILL accomplish that day. It is kinda like Randy Carlson http://www.theintentionallife.com/ always says, live an intentional life, think ahead and do the right thing. It is so easy to just let life happen to us.

Would I place spending 2 hours on a website reading on my to do list?
No.
Will I now delete all the rest of the sites?
No.
I am going to cut down the list so that I can read it in about 1/2 to 1 hour a day. The rest will go into a file for checking occasionally.

What are the primary goals of my life?
1) India
2) regrade the side of my in laws house
3) intentionally interact with Anna, teaching her things

What are your intentional goals for life?

Technology

2007-06-08T21:59:00.000-04:00

Now this is very cool.

I am very impressed, if I could have a wall like this in my house I would have an expensive wall in my house.

The Other Side Of Outsorcing

2007-06-06T16:02:00.000-04:00

Thomas L Friedman and Discovery.com
The other side of Outsourcing

This video was found on BUNGZ.blogspot.com (also found at you tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8quDb3FIUuo)

It is interesting to see how these low wage jobs are growing the economy in India, did you know that soon these job will move to other countries with even lower economies.

The notes were written as a countdown timer

45m India’s way of life unchanged for generations
44m outsourcing from America jobs are going to Bangalore
43m how is the outsourcing affecting the traditional culture
42m British colony for 200 years, so middle class speak English
42m Bangalore first with satellite
42m call centers the how America talks to India
41m call center workers earn more than they ever needed, and they have free time
40m sales calls
40m hang-ups so you have to be able to take rejection
39m tech support
39m Indians are competitive because how many people there are you must fight to stay alive
37m accent neutralization… sound like who you are calling
35m they talk to us and imitate us how does that affect them
34m India coat of living is 1/5 of USA
34m Call center make 200 per month
33m America has been exposed to India for decades but now they can actually become America, before it was just a fantasy
32m a 21 was getting married or studying, but now they work
31m now becoming more materialistic
31m Call center people are becoming brand conscience (becoming a mini America)
31m the future is very good for India
30m the base on the guru is falling the new is Bill Gates
29m ‘my god is immortal for me’
29m older people respected their parents now they think independent they may say ‘no’ to your parents
28 m family bond is very strong still though
27m 54% of the Indian population is under the age of 25. 555m young people
26m is globalization to look more like USA?
22m they talk about traditions and the importance and the pictures tied to Hindu worship
22m [traditions are important, but why do something that was done? WHY? Yes we need to know what was done but we need to be smart about what we do don’t just do it because it was done but have a mind behind what is being done]
21m “glocalize” use what is best locally, and still be global
20m Changing traditional skills to the new world sculpting to digital 3d… that way the skills do not die
18m a 26part series about Krishna is being made for the world market, with American actors, American writers, and Indian illustrators
16m ‘the outsourcing is a tip of the iceberg, there is much more going to be done’
15m India middle class is 300million people a big marketplace to sell to
14m innovations is the future of America in America
14m globalization has to be two-way traffic (American money was gained at the expense of the rest of the world in the past)
13m Infosys campus is like a resort not a business.
12m almost all American corporation use Indian for an integral part of their livelihood
11m to make the world a safer place the *stans countries need access to this global market if they do not have it they will fight to get it. [Economics can stop wars]
9m only a small % of the Indian population is touched by the IT boom
9m 10% of India lives in slums
8m though they do work construction of IT buildings for 1-2dollars a day they live in slums without water children not going to school migrating from villages
6m local villagers make incense sticks for 5-10 rupees a day as a cottage industry; a corporation does it mechanically taking away whole villages of jobs [yunus says this is the next global activist for industry to support other people at the cost of a little bit of profits]
7m globalization must be good for everyone to work if the poor are left behind there will be problems.
5m do we let the poor village move to the city, or cherish them and figure out a job they can do in the village that is global
4m ‘quality of life… where is it all going?’ TL Freidman
3m it must be made good for all people
3m there is examples of the ‘ideal’ that is good untouchable kids learning computers at a young age.
2m an Indian who made it big in America using his money to help the poorest children of India
1m the poor are just as smart as anyone given the chance they can be as good as anyone1m the high tech segment in India is only 3million people today

The Story We Find Ourselves In

2007-06-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

The story we find ourselves in –brian mclaren c2003
Book two of a three book series
A New Kind Of Christian
The Story We Find Ourselves In
The Last Word And The Word After That
This book has a pretty good idea, but the foundation and acceptance of evolution being right poorly skew most of the foundation arguments of the book. (After the many science articles I have read about evolution there is, in my opinion, more faith required for this scientific theory than is needed to believe in the easter bunny.) So by trying to base the arguments on evolution the result is very unsound theology. And while some ideas sound plausible in the short term when they are brought out into eternity (the same amount of time available for evolution) the conclusion is awry.

The largest of these theologically is it is assumed that as time continues that Christianity will take hold and the world will evolve towards the perfection of heaven on earth. Yet why then do we even need Christ, why over and over again is it said in the Bible that the world get worse for followers before it becomes renewed?

I have not yet decided if I am for or against the idea that the sin of man was gradual vs. starting with a single event (eating an apple.) Did Adam and Eve sin small while their son committing murder larger? Then the reasoning behind the sin in the book… God intended people to be dependant on him by following animals around, hunter gatherers. But when Cain settled down on land and owned it he killed his brother for using ‘his’ land. The conclusion is that God wanted us to be dependant on God by being dependant on roaming around. Why then is the future heaven described as a new City of Jerusalem?

The books does show the process of how and why a person would still want to accept Christ as a personal savior, and rightly struggles with why / how Christ dying on the cross can really work to get us in alignment with God.

My notes while reading the book:
Pxiv The goal of this book is to help ‘nonreligious be spiritual’ people discover how their lives in the context of this new old story, while helping modern Christians re-imagine our story beyond the grid of its modern telling.

Pxv do not accept the answers as right, but challenge to develop your own view that is better than this book has. [and I have / am if you look at my other posts]

P14 ‘then the bible was read aloud… then two questions were asked, what did you notice? what struck you?’ … followed by How does this relate to your life?’

P17 ‘Carol and I have been in pastoral ministry and around death and dying long enough to know that the best thing to do at times like this is not to offer assurances, but just listen. “I’m sure you’ll be just fine’ is intended to cheer up the person in pain, but it also give the unintended message ‘your not allowed to talk about death.” Dying is hard enough, but dying and not being able to talk about it – if you want to and need to talk – is harder still.’

P20 he was totally devoted to God, but not religious about his spirituality, it is like ‘he discovered a whole new way of being a Christian’

P30 ‘let there be…’ God created something that is outside of himself. My personal example would be a model railroad designed to complete detail in my imagination, then the real one made created, and able to exist when my thoughts change. To build my railroad I used stuff that existed, when God created he made the stuff that exists.

P33 ‘for me [genesis] is a story that gives us in-formation a story that forms us inwardly with truth and meaning.’ It is not a facts story but an illustration story just like the Native American Indian stories are about their stories. But as it fits closer with science somehow it all needs to become science.

P37 God intended for people to have relationships, with people animals and Himself.

P40 God created us in his image to be partners in what he created,

P49 every thing is both supernatural, and everything is natural, God is involved in all we know and he is apart from all we know.

P52 God made the world good not perfect / ideal

P52 the evil of humanity does not erase the goodness of God

P54-55 the ‘fall’ sin of man is tied to physical and technology advancement if evolution is true [to me there are large enough gaps to say it is as true as if God was like a prolific artist making drawing after drawing each one slightly improved.] Adam and Eve had more knowledge than they could handle morally this lead to awkwardness
Hunter gathers dependent on the world must travel light developed language etc
Herders traveled with the animals in their care, must travel light
Crop growers can stay put have lots of stuff own land etc
Cain a crop grower killed Able a herder in a field (maybe over land use dispute?)
[I could see this for Cain and able but not Adam and eve, I think they were influenced]
p57 the next technological advance cities and bricks

p56 human beings intellect grow beyond their moral wisdom and self restraint

p56 if you live in a city you do not feel much need for God

p62 gods in Abrams time were territorial, on a river the next a plain, a mountain… if you lived somewhere you tried to appease the nearby gods because they could tend to get mean

p62 [the book seams not to acknowledge that God does interact with us like Abram realized on his own there is only one God]

p66 God wants his people to be a blessing to others that is why he blesses them

p82 The bible is a book that does not tell you what to think but how to think

P101 the world is real separate from god (it is not in Gods imagination)

P102 a theory is like looking out a window at the sky you cant see it all but with different windows you can get a fuller picture

P113 conversations don’t all need to be deep / spiritual

P117 we need to see Jesus relative to when he lived [Jesus would have done different things if he lived in 2007 Chicago.]

P121 Jesus was master to the disciples as a master craftsman has his students.

P127 A new kind of Christina called together to learn from Christ then sent out to be an example and teach others the same way of life.

P147 we see it all as the past event makes the next event happen… what if we are being pulled to a goal the final needs the event before it to happen etc. [God is not fixing a broken world as much as he is making the steps for a final complete world, like baking a cake has many steps before it is good]

P160 what Newton called laws seams more like language, less important than what they make possible. Just as grammar is less important than the conveyance words allow.

P165 Jesus was not about creating a new culture but about showing how all the current ones are part of God’s story of history.

P165 the ‘blocks’ of understood religion are good it is just they need to be rearranged.

P167 [Is heaven eternal a steady state bliss like a happy rock? Or is it a story, active, real, changing?]

P169 to the middle classes it is not good to make a little bubble of good family values but include the poor in what is good.

P187 On the Galapagos Islands animals are not afraid of people because humans care for them as what they are, not how they could be exploited.

My Conclusions:This book does exactly what it says it would, I do not agree with most of it, but it is making me take the time to think through what I do think.

Foundation

2007-05-31T22:28:00.000-04:00

Last week I talked about writing what I believe, this week I took the opportunity to write something up for my mom as she thinks about some things, wanting my point of view. (Mom and I are a lot a like, we like to talk about things at a 'deeper' level.) The total of what I wrote is seven pages, and could be longer. I wanted to post a small section of what I wrote. To summarize: Everyone has a foundation for their life, many do not take the time to look at it. Where you stand affects a lot of what you do. A poor foundation causes problems for the whole structure above it and every one living inside it. Well here it is my personal creed, my personal foundation:

My foundation is Christ, Jesus, and the Lord creator of everything. I believe this world was created, in six distinct periods, and is separate from the creator, both the creator and the created are completely real. Each and every living thing in this created world reproduces. Everything real is interrelated and God gave man the job of caring for this world in a positive caretaker, gardener, nurse, zookeeper like way.

The earth, universe, and time was not created as good and then corrupted. Before even the start God had the time after the end in mind. God’s goal was not a
good world that was corrupted and he will destroy and trash and replace. It is like he is baking a cake, destroying eggs, flour, water, sugar and heat to in the end have something great, he made the ingredients in six days and on the seventh he is resting while it rises before it goes into the fire and out comes something much better than that going in.

Evil is very real also, a third part of reality, and as God has made us separate from himself we can choose and do choose to live apart from Him, evil in us is sin. But God
also gave us a way to live with him. The not completely understood fact of Christ dying on the cross gave me a focal point to say; ‘I cannot be perfect on my own. It is not enough for me to basically good, I need to be perfect and I need help to do that.’ Faith is accepting it as true even without full understanding.

I need an immovable goal and foundation to rest my life, my thoughts, and my actions upon. I give my life to Christ, his Father, and let the Holy Spirit inside of me to guide my life. I give up my life completely in order to live the life the Real God would like me to live. I never realized how much God would take of me, but he did. And my life is the better for it.

Each time I get swayed and corrupted I will try hard to return to the simple Rock foundation of my life, though not completely understood the Bible helps. I will guard my heart from other ‘good’ advice, knowledge, and efforts and instead focus on what is best.

What would you say?

2007-05-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

Remember some time back Robert Fulghum published ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN, a book about what is important to live a life? Each year he would write down his mission statement and about his world view. There is something so permanent about writing something down. It is hard, very hard if you want it permanent. Saying something might be much easier, but to write it, to refer back to it again and again... you want it to mater. I mean what would you write on your gravestone? That is something that is getting closer and closer to the front burner of an activity for me. My world view is changing, I am nearing a place where i want to write it down, look at it, review it, see where the holes are so I grow strong.

A small part will be talking about my funeral, but also I want to look at my life, what i can do now... my faith, and how I raise my daughter Anna. Some friends of ours took the time to write down what they wanted to their child to know as they brought her forward to God as part of their Church dedication. Ellie is now One, an adopted part of their lives, a permanent part of their lives. In their care and leadership and training. They have chosen to be the Eli in their little Samuel's life.

"Our greatest desire for you is to grow up intimately knowing your creator and to walk with Him your entire life. We believe that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live and we will do our part to help point you to your Savior." -Ben and Holly

How true that is... and what a long journey that will be. It will not be easy to do. To read their entire letter go to http://benjaminandholly.blogspot.com/2007/05/ellies-dedication-and-dol.html

If God adopted us what would His letter to us be? Would it change each year, as we grow and change, or would it be the same. Would it be short, or long? Who would read it to us? Would it change if we were born to him or if he had to choose us?

Young Engineer

2007-05-14T10:27:00.000-04:00

It is great in this world that we can laugh. It makes life so much more fun.

In the Dilbert cartoon one of the episodes is called The Knack, about a young Dilbert and his mother. After a conversation with the doctor Dilbert's mom asks "will he be able to lead a normal life" the doctor's answer "no he will be an engineer" She breaks down crying. I represent that fact.

So should i worry that Anna could unscrew knobs since she was 9 mo old, and cares more about the machine filling the build a bear animals than the animals themselves? She has not yet taken apart a TV and put is back together, but again she is only two, she has time.

If you want to see the Dilbert spot it can be found on You tube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNG2zYh02TI

The Perfect Future

2007-05-04T16:29:00.000-04:00

I just finished reading the book 'Revolution in World Missions', byK.P. Yohannan, a book I recomend everyone get and read, it is free, just go to www.GFA.org to request your copy. One point in there he talks about who the Anti-Christ is, he says, and I agree that it is economic in source.

Then I read just now a news article about Muhammad Yunus next idea. Socialistic business.
www.symbiotics.ch/en/rss_microfinance.asp?id=b461 Running businesses with a socialistic goal as the bottom line, less hunger, better schooling, better health, etc. His first experiment is working with Danone to provide yogurt to the poor in Bangladesh. His motives are interesting. Quoting the article: "In a country like Bangladesh, paralyzed by strikes and inept governance, it's obvious why Yunus sees business rather than the state as the way to solve social problems."

Wow, the state can't do it, so lets try consumerism. It is ok that the whole idea of consumerism is to make money for the few, Adam Smith's perfect economies never has happened in real life. Consumerism involves money which easily corrupts.

What a noble idea. The government failed, but money will work. Sounds so noble, but think of Enron, Collins & Aikman, GE of the past, and so many others that have gone bankrupt, corrupt, or damaged the environment and so much else.

This is another attempt to solve the world without God. Make it good without the one who is good. Pull human nature up by our own bootstraps. The problem is, it will work. People will get richer, the poor will have their money, the rich theirs. Wells will be drilled, people educated, doctors paid, tv and phones bought and used. There will be no more need for spiritual things, no more worshiping of useless gods. No more needing to worship the one true God. It will be possible to work and survive your time on this life comfortably. We will not see millions of people dieing because of simple needs.

And yes even the church will get involved, they already are. Give loans to people, tell them to live biblical ways and all will be better and good, they work themselves out of poverty and live the way God asks them too. But how off the mark. We are called to go beyond biblical living, we are to have a one on one relationship with Christ, to give everything we have to him.

Do you know that most Christ followers in Asia actually have it worse off than those that live like the rest of their culture? Everything we read about in the Bible happens to them, they are hurt, killed, or banished. There is a great cost to following Christ. It would be rare for a westerner to have his shop burned down if he changed religions, but it is common in India. Yet there are 20million Christians in India alone, many sharing their faith, a faith that is growing. But so too is the economy, and money is 'good' for everyone, there are very few people that would disagree.

Knowing

2007-05-01T13:19:00.000-04:00

One of these girls is Ruth, the Other Anna. They are no blood relation, but look very similar.

This past Sunday I was asked to stand up in front of a Jr. and Sr. High Sunday School class and talk. I prayed about what to talk about. I felt lead to take into the classroom a pebble, a rock, and a toy car. I started by saying that I started out life as an Engineer, then this past summer I learned about listening to God. I set the pebble on the ground and said "God talks to everyone." I rolled the car up to the pebble and said "we need to listen" I then rolled the car again, this time much faster so it went over the pebble, "we can chose not to listen." Then I set down the rock, "God may need to talk louder." While I rolled the car up to the rock. Nancy then said, "The louder God talks the more it is going to hurt."

Now the continuation of the story. God talks to us, but so does his enemy, the shameful thing is that it is with a similar enough voice that we need much discernment to know who it is. The good news is that we have the Bible! God's message is quite consistent, it is always good. Much like this picture I need to know and have an intimate relationship with my daughter. If I picked up Ruth or Josh picked up Anna the result would be a very unhappy child. But as Anna knows me and I her, picking her up results in a hug. The same for Ruth and Josh.

The Genesis Questions

2007-04-27T16:47:00.000-04:00

Another book...

This one by Hugh Ross is trying to interelate sound biblical teaching with sound science teaching. Like many of my favorite pastors he many times refers to the origional Hebrew version of the bible. One thing new I learned is that the Hebrew parts of the bible is only 3000 different words. (much of the first half of the old testiment if memory serves me right.) He points out that many times a single hebrew word has a couple scaler definitions such as day could be the 12 hours of light, the 24 hours from dark to dark, or era, a long period of time. So while KJV etc of bible translators used the 24 hour period it is the idea of ages that fit with society, with each ending and the next beginning.

He says that in the first six ages God created things, and the current age, now, is the seventh rest period with no creation work taking place but life goes on.

For a while I thought with confidence that Noah lived 4000 years ago, and Adam 6000. He points out that Hebrew geneologies skip generations, think how Isrealites all saw themselves as sons of Abraham.

He also says that the biomass as present in coal, oil, and limestone formations (all come from former natural sources) could not be present on the earth at one time, there is not room.

Also noted was some math about how many people should have been alive before Noah got onto the arc. Should have been around 56 billion. But there is no proof it was that high, the reason given is that there was a very high rate of murder.

I am glad that the book does not try to answer every possible question. For example why are there races, dark and light skin color, nose shapes and other small physical difference? There is not clear science answer, every answer it science can provide can be disproved. The bible is hush on the subject of why, but does point out that dark and light skinned people lived at moses time.

If you care about how science and God interelate this should be one of the books you read. Should it be the only one you read? I don't think so. It is good to get your thoughts from many different sources and you us your wisdom to reach your own conclusions.

One last point he stated is that Faith is based on facts, and actions based on faith. God askes you to love your God with your mind body and soul. Your mind is what you use to look at science. For me if there is a contradiction between God his word and science I place the error on our understanding of the word, or science, not on God.

A New Kind Of Christian

2007-04-08T19:54:00.000-04:00

Another Book Review.

This book is an eye opener, an easy read as it is a dialog between two people, one asking many of the questions the reader will struggle with. As a solid Christian when reading it you will struggle with the middle chapters, but to stop there will only lead to frustration with McLaren. Read the whole book then think it over. McLaren admits that he is trying to define something that is not yet completely defined. Thinking about it this book is from 2001 and is getting out of date.

What is the purpose of the book. It is to open eyes. It is to realize that the way we worship God, the traditions we have, etc. Well they worked in the modern era, but they will isolate non-Christians in the future. The world is changing, for the past 400 years it has been a modern world. Defined as very scientific, structured, organized. Great for an engineer like me. But the post modern world is different. It uses the systems of the modern era but also relationship are much more important. One thing to realize is that the post modern era is not settled, it is still being defined. Look at the HighSchool generation now to get a glimps of the future.

Like I said last time Churches will have to change to relate to the world post modern. While I think Saddleback and Willow creek (Churches I have never been too) were on the path, McLaren thinks not, he thinks that churches will have to change even more than them.

What is good, McLaren thinks that the current idea of Christianity is wrong. He sees it as being selfish, and limited in sight. The idea of getting to heaven is wrong. He thinks Christianity is more about bringing God's intended world into fruition here, now.

I think I agree, God created a world, he allowed us to have free choice. In the start I think the angels had a lot more direct relation with humans Genesis 6:2-4. [A source for the stories of the Greek and Hindu Gods?] So God started over with Noah and Humans, then the tower of Babel... I digress will write that all down later. What I want to say now: God created a perfect world, it is even perfect today, with exception of the sin of man. God loves and lives in his perfect world. That ugly spider you hate, God sees perfection. Nature is perfection. God also gives us a lot of rules in the early Bible to live in the world the right way, in harmony with the perfect world he intended. For thousands of years the Jewish people tried to live by the rules but could not. So then The Holy Spirit comes and is inside us to help us do those rules.

Let me digress, it is not rules that are important but the spirit of the rules. Think about what Jesus said He did not come to abolish the law but fulfill it. The law is there to show us our sin, so we realize we need God, as Jesus to help us live in harmony with the perfect world. Jesus even made the rules more strict, it was do not commit adultery, now it was don't even imagine undressing the woman walking down the street. We can not live the way God wants us to without help. We need to understand not the rules the yes and no's but the why's. The great news is that life will get a lot simpler then.

So in the end acceptance with God is not just about the doorway to a happy eternity. It is about returning this world to perfection. The perfection that only Adam and Eve have experienced. Jesus was sinless, but he did not live in a perfect world. Everything I have of in the Bible describing Heaven is a return to the Garden of Eden, but with a lot more people it will be a city.

So saying that, in the perfect world, many of the things Christian Americans do is wrong. They should actually live more like American Indians. But while they worshiped the great spirit and talked about lesser gods, we understand GOD and his Angels and troublesome Demons. I do wonder again, many of the traditions that Hindu's use to worship, can they be used to worship God? I mean even modern Christian traditions really are realignment of worship of things not God to God. Can a Hindu do the same?

They have sacrifices to gods, so explaining to them that Jesus is our sacrifice would work. They try to live in harmony with Nature. I think that is what is missing from modern Christianity, somehow it became a goal to get into a sheep pen of heaven to just sit around. But like I said in my description of the blog, the building we enter is not a Church but a train station, after been there for a while we need to go out to the tracks and go on an adventure! But we do not go alone we have a guide with us.

Walking With The Poor

2007-04-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

I think I have a new number one book. Walking with the Poor by Bryant Myers is a book anyone thinking of doing any missionary work must read. While the beginning chapters get a little heady with the point counterpoint research of other authors the last chapter does pull it together.

This book is not an answer book or instruction book. It is instead a book of eye opening. It helps those going to help the poor to look at the full picture. To realize that the poor are not just those with poor health or no water but to make sure to understand the political, and spiritual history of the community of service. It stresses the importance of engaging everyone that will be affected by the change you are bringing.

Best of all the book is written from a Christian point of view. And recognizes that the worldview of a village has a lot of weight. It also recognises that the worldview of the western 'modern' world is incomplete compared to traditional and biblical world views. All world views have a physical world, and a God world, the modern world lacks a connecting world (a continuum of influence between the two.) But spiritual based models have the reality of acting lesser gods or spirits that affect the world around us. And can be used to affect the Gods.

What surprised me is the idea that we do not fully understand or have developed the biblical world view. Humans do not understand God's view of the world fully.

There is talk too in this book about how to bring people to Christ. It is not as simple as telling only about Jesus, you need to explain the history of the old testament and see the parallels in the history of your working culture. Then rewrite that history to be from God's eyes. Thing is this can not be done by and outsider, it must be done by those in the community. Not just the poor you are helping but also the 'non poor' who live with them. They also need to know of Jesus and his saving work.

The work you do is a opening to tell about Jesus and God. Don't be silent about the story. But don't if you use sonar to find a water source say it was your God that helped you. Technology and science do not bring people closer to God. But they have a lot of truth to them that will split the worldview. Science will be used for the physical world but the old god's will be kept for spiritual needs.

This book is a must read for anyone that is going to try to change a culture. The actions required boil down to asking again why why why until the foundational reason for a tradition is found. Then explaining how God views that.

This book talks about poor in Africa, India, and the influence of the culture and current religion on that culture. The reality is Hindu religion is written by the rich to explain why they are rich and why the poor need to be poor and not rise up.

Future of Church

2007-04-02T17:50:00.000-04:00

I am reading many books right now. A couple in depth books looking at the future of the church, how what we go to on Sunday mornings will change, how what we do as community will change. The reason we all agree is that the current traditions are set from the modern era. The rest of the world is now transitioning from the modern era to the postmodern one. That is why I think so many Christians, Rob Bell, Bill Hyble, Brian Mclarin, and churches Willow creek, Mars Hill, Saddleback, Granger, and many many local churches are stretching the thoughts and comfortableness of life long Christians.

They all know that without change the next generation of Christians will be born into the faith, not choosing it at an older age, everything done will be tradition, abstract from society. So while Jesus will not change, and the way we believe, the laws that remind us that we sin, and when followed help us stay very close to God. But how do we keep the foundation firm. Traditions are hard to break.

Did you know that most Christian Traditions we have now are actually from non-Christian sources. Christmas and the Mesopotamians worship of Marduk, Easter and . Could Christ, God, and Holy Spirit be worshiped and obeyed through the methods of other religions instead of the former European methods? For a long time I saw the value in the Native Americans value of the earth. But those bringing Christ also brought them their own culture.

I am reading many books on Hinduism. The children's books are the best for the amazing subject that is so new to me. It reminds me most of what I have heard of the Greek gods. This is a religion without a central theme, it just builds and build. Odd thing is that at it source it is one God with three identities. There are some other things that make me wonder if as the post modern age becomes full swing it will be easier to bring them Christ without them loosing what is right in their culture currently.

God's Economy

2007-03-29T11:51:00.002-04:00

While I really like my thoughts on Mickey it is time to add a new post. This one again is long, lots of quotes from the book Friend Raising. This is a great book for all Christians to read.

God's economy is different than ours, Giving and Receiving is different than selling and buying.

Friend Raising building a missionary support team that lasts –Betty Barnett

P7 ‘generosity is the primary theme of “friend raising” ‘

Ch 1
P11 ‘many Christians considering full-time missionary service are more fearful of support raising than of being martyred on the mission field’

P11 living without a steady paycheck definitely requires a strong faith of God.

P11 ‘these principles of support raising are intimacy in relationships, interdependence, mutual love and sharing, and bearing one another’s burdens.’

P12 working / being self-supporting removes a reliance on God we become independent from Him.

P13 ‘we must conscientiously break independence in our own lives and conscientiously cultivate interdependence with one another and with God.’

P13 “Missionaries are not sparing verbally with others for their money. Interdependence is not Christian welfare. It is joining forces to defend the faith and fight the good Fight.’

P14 ‘none of us can go it alone. We must constantly strengthen our support web.’

P14 Jesus, the twelve, Paul, and Elijah were supported by others

P15 ‘If God called you, you are worthy, He has declared you so.’

P16 The first step if you feel called is to talk to those in authority over you, pastors, elders, parents, and God. This is a serious time of discernment, the advice of your home will be great, it may be how God directs you, or how you are held back from God.

P19 ‘four pillars are needed: friend raising, generosity, communication, and prayer with promise.’

Ch2
P21 ‘We are to seek first the Kingdom of God, not the dollar’

P22 ‘others can tell what our goals are, to cherish and enjoy them, or to use them to serve our own goals.’

P22 a farmer gave 10 pounds of seeds to a missionary who gave it away when she arrived in her new village in the Philippines. [Giving does not have to be money, but other things of use too] Barb does not ask for support but does spend 10 hours a week just communicating back to those that do communicate with her from Minnesota.

P24 ‘in our fragmented society of broken families and broken relationships our greatest ache comes from loneliness.’

P25 [Many times as you work on your friendship people will give you money, and it may be awkward, but you need to recognize that at that point you are Jesus, they give their gift “as to God himself”]

P28 “if I have… but do not love, I am nothing” 1cor113:2’

P29 ‘During visits back home, our primary role should be to listen. To often we are quick to speak of our ministry … and seldom quick to listen.’

P31 ‘few people today are equipped to listen. We tend to offer quick fix scripture references and simple dos and don’ts

P32 to develop a true deep relationship takes time, and listening on both parts, and perception and the ability to ask the right questions.

Ch3

P35 ‘suddenly I understood – it was not others’ generosity towards us, but our generosity towards others, that was the key.’

P36 even poor congregations in South America give a handful of rice or a tomato. As the poor gave God increased what they had so they could give more.

P37 ‘Earl Pitts “the kingdom of God's system of finance is giving and receiving. The worlds system is buying and selling.”

P37 buying selling is an equal transaction, giving receiving is not.

P41 it is easier to give than receive. There is much guilt / responsibility in receiving a gift given in truth to God.

P41 ‘there is no lack of money for God’s work. The money is there, but much of it is locked into some buying-and-selling systems [debt] that have consumed and robbed the church. Our own generosity can release others from ordinary buying and selling into giving and receiving.’

P43 as missionaries we must not only lay our life down for the people we minister too but also for those that ‘send’ us. Not just those who give us money but everyone that God lays on your heart.

Ch4
P48 ‘many people want to express their love in actions, but do not know how.’

P50 sometimes the Holy Spirit tells others what financial needs are… other times we will be told who to ask

Ch5
P57‘we are co-laborers with the Lord.’ Being a missionary is not by might or power but by the spirit.

P59 col 1:9-11, ps. 120:1, ps. 121:1-3 7-8, ps34:4-5 7, ps 145:13, 1 cor 15:58, 1 th 5:24 ‘the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it’, eph 3:20, 1 tim 1:12, 2 cor 11:30 12:9-10

P62 ‘prayer with promises will either be our point of greatest strength or, if we don’t pray, our point of greatest weakness.’

Ch6
P66 visit face to face
P67 talk on the telephone
P68 hand written messages
P69 newsletters with a small handwritten message
P69 video’s bulletin inserts, whole church communication
P70 give and send gifts
P72 awareness

P72 to start talk with the people you talk to now then to people you used to talk to but lost contact with then to newly introduced friends.

P73 ‘a key principle: encourage people to first ask the Lord, then respond to us in accordance to his will.’

P73 ‘be careful not to select people we think should give to us. God does the selecting, we do the communicating.’

P73 Also remember to give specific areas of need like airline miles or a computer that could be given.

P74 personally invite people to respond. ‘Would you pray about providing monthly support of $5 to $100 a month?’

P75 ‘money should be the byproduct not the core of a relationship.’

P75 many people will wait and see before giving [just like those so many missionary go to serve it takes long term investments]

P76 you are developing a network of support, at the top is the close prayer and financial supporters, and others are just on our hearts. Some get a bi weekly update, others twice a year. God will tell you who and when.

P77 ‘the local church is a sending body’ as Paul says in Rom 10:14-15

P78 ‘if your pastor does not mention it feel free to ask for them to have a corporate time of blessing during the Sunday morning service soon before your departure to the field.’

P82 ‘friend raising is an adventure in dependence. A strong dependence on God and a interdependence with His people’

Ch7
P86 Hindrances include:
using athourity to pressure results,
Spiritual attack,
debt,
Poverty mentality (love of money when we have none),
disobedience (SIN),
ingratitude,
lack of integrity,
unforgiveness

P93 ‘walking in freedom from the fear of death and be willing to obey God at any cost snatches the element of fear out of Satan’s hands. He loves to issue fear filled and life threatening taunts, especially as we venture into missionary service.’

P99 so often I will send letters about a need, with an over stated or understated budget, and God will provide EXACTLY what I need.

P99 many times I will buy the plane tickets then pray Ok God what should I do… ‘and watch God do the selecting, I walk a walk of faith not of sight’

P100 it is very important to send thank you notes to supporters

P101 make sure you have no sin in you

P101 ‘whenever a thank you is needed but not given the relationship is broken’

P102 ‘receiving a gift is an honorable thing’

P102 let the gift giver know they were acting on behalf of God

P105 ‘since the tithe belongs to God, paying it is not an act of generosity, but an act of simply paying what is owed.’ [Yes those in missions need to tithe!!!]

Malachi 3:8-10 ...test your God in this.

P106 ‘john Wesley believed as a christens income increased so should there standard of giving.’

P106 ‘Jesus asks us to live beyond the law in many areas.’

P107 forgive people for not writing, you sending info to them is still important

P107 ‘you need to trust the Holy Spirit on who to send and who not to send information too.’

Ch8
P111 ”I have heard of many fund raising techniques and this one feels right in my spirit”

P111 scriptural principles are universal, practices are regional.

P113 a missionary should be sent by their own church, if they are from a very poor Indian village that church should send, a handful of rice at each meal and a prayer will add up.

P117 tent making still needs support, accountability, etc… it is important to have that base.

Ch9
P119 ‘Testimonies that talk’

P125 sent letters to 11 people telling of a need, 5 meet the need, wrote letters to all 11 thanking them for their work, God gave exactly what was needed!

P129 the sending church is more than just financially involved; they also want to pray when decisions need to be made. They want to know specifically what to pray.

P132 don’t put all your eggs in one basket, layer your support response, and listen to the Holy Spirit for your correspondence, a written note on the newsletter is important.

Ch10
P135 don’t let impersonal newsletters be your only source of support raising

P136 newsletters are vital to communication but include one line of your own hand in different color.

P139 don’t preach, don’t let the mind wander, clearly show prayer needs

P141 be real, show you are human and show the ministry uses you

P142 keep newsletters colorful and real! Pictures, tea bags local stamps, etc…

P144 try to get a response from the reader, not just money but personal

Ch11
P150 God’s economy is based on giving and receiving not buying and selling

Mickey Took a Tumble

2007-03-27T11:02:00.000-04:00

Anna has this cup that I dislike greatly. It even has a name Mickey. Yes the Disney mouse. To me it screams Disney! Why, because it only holds 4 oz of liquid. All show and not much worth. All her other cups hold much more. Then this one has a double wall and liquid in between you can't tell how much drink is in it very easy.

My parents went to Disney years ago, during my spring break. (I was home working) They brought back this CD of music, I think from one of the parades, it is all celebration, but emotionally empty. That CD is much like this cup, entertainment, not substance.

Now to let you know I am not anti Disney. I would love to go to Disney World and or land. I am an engineer, they have a lot of great engineering there to see, plus the people control, etc... my entertainment would be very different than most people that go to hug giant stuffed mice. I would have so much fun looking with a critical eye, though those around me might view it as a downer.

I also have watched, and will continue to watch, Disney related TV and movies. It is entertainment, and sometime I just want that. They have a cute movie called Jump In for example.

We hear all the time about the grown up MM club stars that have a outrageous life I wonder how many are doing life in a Christ centered focus.

Well today I got to throw Mickey out, a tumble on the cement gave him a crack and all his slimy showy liquid leaked out. He was just a shell of himself, and unable to do his meager 4 oz job anymore.

Aids in Asia -Susan Hunter

2007-03-19T19:05:00.000-04:00

Aids in Asia notes

I have, while taking the time to read the book AIDS in Asia, written down many quotes and summaries of statements. While a 6% infection rate sounds small it is important to understand that these individuals are vital to the entire community, as farmers, and productive hard working young people. Without this group the entire population is crippled.

Px ‘Not only is the [HIV/AIDS] epidemic huge and growing unrestrained in most Asian countries, but when the underlying social, political and economic patterns that fuel its growth are brought together and analyzed, it is quite clear that there is little standing in the way of catastrophic impact.’

Px ‘To respond to the disease and its impact, individuals must literally rethink and restructure the societies in which they live and confront and change long-standing social institutions and relationships, often at great personal expense.’

P7 ‘As you finish each sentence of this book another person will have been infected with HIV.’

P10 Nicholas Eberstadt- expert in demographic and predicting population change

P11 ‘…India and China refuse to acknowledge the extent of the disease within their borders nor set up reliable means of monitoring and controlling it.’

P11 China’s estimates are 20 times lower than external estimates for same country.

P11 the reason of keeping data hidden is that it would expose the inequality of the population’s social and economic conditions.

P13 talking about western economies high cost it is pointed out that Netherlands needs an area 15 times it size to support it’s population at the level they are accustom.

P15 ‘Asian societies were shaped by a series of nomadic incursions and peasant rebellions that continue today in other guises.’

Ch2
P27 In 2003 4% of Africa population is infected while only .3% of Asia, where the population is much larger. Estimates are that 5% of china will be infected 7% of India and 10% of Russia’s population will be infected when stable.

P33 STDs increase the transmission of aids by open soars, and the virus load increases in semen when a STD is present.

P34 STD levels are on the rise because of non-condom pregnancy prevention methods. The book gives many pages explaining the effectiveness of condoms and why governments and religious organizations have dissuaded them.

P34 ‘STD contribute to …and Alzheimer’s’ [I would like to see proof of that link]

P35-36 circumcision significantly lowers the rate of HIV transmission from individual to individual. ‘A majority of Asian males are not circumcised.’

P44-46 talks about the large migrant population moving about china and India and other states. Both legal and illegal to mines, construction projects farms etc. If someone is courageous enough to travel they have a more outgoing lifestyle.

P49 ‘poverty that drives migration is so fundamental that it turns life into a constant struggle to survive. “Poverty means working for more than eighteen hours a day, but still not earning enough to feed myself, my husband, and my two children,” says a poor woman in Cambodia. Poverty means loss of freedom, loss of dignity, loss of control over the fundamental course of your life.’

P50 the climb out of poverty is slow because disposable income is so small and could be lost by chance to natural disasters, poor crops, loss of employment, or a family illness.’

P55 In Hindu tradition if you have a disease you are sent far away.
P55 ‘Gita laughed, “Do you think it is any better for Islam?” Patwani … The shy young Pakistani woman said, “… My best friend was stoned to death because her brother raped another girl. The families agreed she should be sacrificed for his transgression. He was not even reprimanded.”

P59 ‘history and tradition are important to Asians themselves, esp. the years before colonial domination, when Asia lead the world in economic, political, scientific, and artistic achievement.’

P60 ‘the Asia continent was united by all of its great nomadic empires Hun, Muslim, Mongol, Mogul, and Manchu’

P63 ‘To Islam’s first raiders, (637ad) Europe was remarkably unattractive prey, a primitive backwater with few opportunities for trade, little booty and bad climate. The had headed east instead, across Persia and through central Asia to India, and remarkably rich city states fell to their sway all along the way.’

P65 in 1206 Genghis Khan united the Mongol people. Just like Muhammad six centuries earlier it was by uniting formally fighting tribal groups to a common cause, expansion to the whole world. [To unite people you need a common cause, else in-fighting will be the result, look at today’s examples, America, the Church, your family.]

P66 ‘The Kahn ravaged a good part of northern India in 1222’

P69 ‘Kublai had inherited Sung paper money and credit banking, streetlights, city sanitation, fire protection, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the poor and aged financed by the inalienable trusts, smallpox variolation [inoculation], and textbooks in medicine, forensics, architecture, mathematics, geography, horticulture, and archaeology.’ [1270’s when Marco Polo was visiting Xanadu the capitol of the Mongolian empire.] [During the time of the Mongolian empire the leader of Europe was the pope.]

P72 Timur the last great nomadic leader attacked India in a quest to rid the world of the Hindi religion in 1398.

P75 “the most significant commodity carried along the Silk Road was religion” Oliver Wild. ‘The Mongols promoted religious tolerance so Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity easily spread.’

P76 ‘in India many Ethiopian slaves rose to positions of power and influence in armies and governments.’ [Castration of slaves was common throughout the world at the time]

P100 when sir James Brooke return from Asia to England in 1838 he argued that Britain should own territories in Asia rather than rely on treaties.

P102 ‘in 1820 Asia’s first economic crisis – colonialism – hit causing sustained economic decline that lasted until the 1950’s’

P103 in 1998 the majority of illiterate people are found in former Asian and African colonial locations.

P103 infrastructure, railroads, roads, etc were only developed in colonial area as suited to the owners.

P104 In reality what we worry today of Asia taking over the world is them just returning to their natural place. Up until the 1800 they produced 60% of the worlds GDP during colonialism that fell to 17% and now it is recovering to 60%; estimated to be complete about 2025. ‘Asia is doing in decades what the rest of the world did in centuries’ At the same time the governmental systems that were effective were destroyed by colonialism, and the current systems are still greatly affected by this dark period.

Transitioning to recent times, in china blood drawing is a support structure for the poor. The system is to have blood removed by ‘handlers’ from a group of people, the plasma removed, and the cells returned to the group. The donors are often corralled, and have the blood drawn several times a day. Their supply bolster by the use of drugs. Blood banks are also used as welfare means in other countries also. But due to the technique if one person is infected, quickly everyone in the entire area is infected.

P106 ‘almost ¼ of the people living with HIV/AIDS in Asia are Indian.’

P107 ‘India is “one of the great migration centers of the world,” says writer Michael Specter, because it has an excellent system of national highways.’

P107 ‘India’s 750 million strong rural population [would be] the second largest “country” in the world.’

P107 the higher infection rates are found in the southern states of India.

P107 ‘AIDS deaths are so frequent in southern India that locals erected a shrine to India’s new AIDS goddess, Aidsamma, at a temple near Mysore. [Reading more on this it was erected by an Indian science teacher, and a Harvard student Anna Portnoy going to study it for her thesis she gave it edification http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/02.24/AIDS.html]

P108 HIV rose from 1.5% in 1995 to 6% in 1997 in Tamil Nadu, the reaction is the best response by government in all of India.

P109 India’s economy is growing, a middle class of 250 million ‘But an ever richer India lacks compassion for its poor, critics say. India has one quarter of the world’s absolute poor. … Most in the lower castes and tribes.’

P110 There are four castes the highest Brahmins, priestly teachers, the soldier-nobles, then merchants, Dalits or untouchables who were darker skinned and did all the work except cremations which were carried out by the lowest of the low, the chandals. [Dalits are called Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu]

P110 ‘Ethnic discrimination in India is compounded by the Hindu Caste System, the world’s oldest form of social stratification, dating from the Aryan expansion into India in 1500 B.C.’ [yes the lighter the skin the higher the status, but also religion plays in, I have seen reference that becoming a Christian makes you a Dalits]

P110-120 There is way too much information here about India and the basic history and why there are so many people groups. The gist is that money and power moved these different groups into the area and out. Most came from the north pushing people south.

P110-120 Much of the extreme poor in Asia was caused by the colonization from European countries, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and England each in turn. They encouraged further stratification of people, removed resources and product, such as spices, silk, and copper ore without compensating the locals. The goal was to amass as much wealth in the home country as possible. Much was done to control the native populations, withholding education being major.

P124 Britton used a divide and conquers system of encouraging animosity between groups to maintain control. [Once again the notion that people will always fight, either against each other or a common goal]

P128 the French were late to the colonization, started in the mid 1800’s and ended when forced to by an international conference in 1954. ‘By then France had convinced the United States, ridden with Cold War anti-Soviet paranoia, to bankroll its war for colonial restoration in North Vietnam…’

P142 ‘Nutmeg and mace may have driven the first phase of European colonization in Asia, but it was a different “spice” entirely that drove the second phase of colonial exploitation in the 19th and 20th centuries. This spice traded by early Asian merchant as medicine was opium.’

P175 the last numerous pages are talking about the drug trade with opium and heroin primary focus because both come from poppies. Heroin is injected, and needle sharing is a primary HIV path. It is amazing to see who was involved in growing drug use. The colonies used it to make the people complacent. Others supplied enemies with drugs to help their cause; this includes the US (CIA). Now to be smart it is only in the last 90 years has illicit drug use been banned, before that it was even common to give these addictive drugs to soldiers, government officials, and even schoolchildren to help with behavior issues. But the primary use was to place the workforce in bondage, addicts needing to work to get paid for the next fix.

P175 ‘the contemporary drug industry is fed by a commodities market created by European colonial powers that could “promote cultivation where needed (India) and suppress it where not (southeast Asia),” while integrating the whole into the global economy. Global prohibition beginning in the 1920s added another layer: “criminal syndicates emerged to link highland growers and urban addicts in a global illicit market.” Each subsequent effort to suppress production and use has had a chain of unintended consequences that has bolstered the drug trade and increased markets. Nearly 80 years of failed eradication efforts show that “the illicit drug market is a complex global system, both sensitive and resilient, that quickly transforms suppression into stimulus,” says McCoy.’

P185 ‘ The only reason women are not at the absolute bottom of the global feeding chain is because children are weaker.’

P186 ‘almost 70% of the 1.2 billion of the worlds extremely poor people are women.’

P207 ‘ 1/5 of humanity now follows Islam.’

P209 ‘The Positive Women’s Network of South India says that women rarely inherit property shared during a marriage, and may even lose the property they brought into the marriage when their husband die.’

P209 In Hindu culture women are not part of caste IE they are all untouchables.

P210 typical birth ratio is 5% more males than females. Because of preference towards males, and available technology the ratio in China and other parts of Asia can be 20% males.

P223 responses to growing orphan populations: 0 deny 1 state and charity orphanages 2 over flowing orphanages 3 search out community care solutions 4 paired community support with poverty relief, food support, education, healthcare for guardians and orphans

P233 Relatives usually confiscate the property of women in Africa and Asia.

P234 known trafficked people is about 1 million this is only people being brought unwillingly across firm country borders, not including in country nor unpatrolled borders.

P234 ‘there are 250 million child laborers under the age of 14, more than half in Asia “under appalling conditions, facing sexual abuse and even slavery”. Twenty percent are domestic laborers, mostly girls. … ‘

P234 ‘The same Hindu belief system that condemns women to permanently lower status provides a convenient philosophical underpinning for economic extortion of India’s youngest citizens. Human Rights Watch ways “one of the foundation of bonded labor is the caste system, through which a traditional expectations of free labor, lack of land, and the threat of violence and social and economic boycotts from upper castes conspire to keep many so called untouchables in bondage and perpetual state of poverty.” Vimali, a fifteen year old girl in Tamil Nadu bonded by her parents, to a silk loom owner for $167 says “this is the thing that god blessed me with, so I have to do work like this. It is written on my head. I don’t want to go to the looms, but there is no other way.” These children work 14 hours a day, sleep in the factories between the looms, rarely see their families, are beaten if they make mistakes and because of scurrilous accounting systems, the always stay in debt no matter how much the earn.’

P235 ‘Between 60 and 115 million children work in India’

P236 it is very bad karma to become an orphan

Conclusion: This book is written by someone frustrated by the common USA and Christian stance that only abstinence is the acceptable form of birth and disease control. Each of the major world religions frown upon the use of condoms. Add to this that though effective HIV treatment drugs could, and do, cost a dollar a day the US govt. is supporting its pharmaceutical companies in keeping prices at $10,000 to $20,000 a year. This book is very harsh on the reality, and while in some cases the numbers are being used sensationalize the HIV/AIDS epidemic that is coming to the Asian countries, it is at the same time factual.

Koi

2007-03-10T22:10:00.000-05:00

I loved my koi. When i moved from st louis to detroit i bought a van for $500 so that I could move them. But last summer I made the hard choice, knowing that it would be a while before I owned land again. My brother and parents both have bonds with full populations, so they did not have room. I sold them for $25 each. Well I made $100 because no one wanted a couple of them. Then on emptying the pond we did find baby koi. Some I gave away, some did make it into my brothers pond. Maybe one will be nice and blue like the one on top. With a titch of orange under the head.

Justification

2007-03-03T16:23:00.000-05:00

“How can you Biblically justify going and lending money when the Bible says neither a lender nor borrower be?” My brother asks me.

Well actually that is a line from Shakespeare. A quick scan of the Bible and my memory as a Crown coach I can not find where lending is forbidden. Nor is borrowing. But there are blessings and curses to them both. See Deuteronomy 15:5-6 and 28:1,2,12,15,43-45 Ok really read all of chapters 15 and 28 because many times a verse taken out of context can be way skewed. To paraphrase, if you follow the commands of God you will be blessed and one of the blessings is you will lend to many nations by borrow from none. And the curse is the negative of that. So we can lend… and if you have ever been in debt you realize the importance of Proverbs 22:7 “Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender.” Now we lend and we have servants! Please clean my house, and… well maybe not.

In India where we are going there are already microcreditors so why go develop another one? What is the goal of lending? For many it is profit, they charge a 30% interest rate on a 3 month loan. What would that APR be? But Growing Opportunity uses a different approach. They still charge a fairly high interest rate 15%, (this is similar to what a wealthy person would be paying on a large loan.) But as much as possible of that goes back into the loaning pool. Second we require weekly repayment, with a training session at the same time. Reviewing the Opportunity.net material I see that there are formal training sessions on 400 topics, from business improvement, family improvement, to spiritual concerns.

Opportunity International has a triple bottom line goal of transformation, outreach and sustainability. The goal is to change life, many lives, and do it in a self supporting manner, both for the lender and the borrower. Remember the concept of "give a man a fish.. teach a man to fish"? Years of experience has proven out many tools and techniques that can and are doing long term good. And in Chennai India the tsunami was a catalyst for improving the operations of a NGO lending center, IID partnered with OI and transformed to a for profit banking center, still supporting the same clients. Jim Reiff became CEO a year ago the time is set for an infusion of effort by a couple Americans to come in and coach, train, and work hard for a while before going home again. While I have no clue exactly what we will be doing I know that we will be leaving some well equipped Indian nationals to carry on microlending with a transformational goal. They already have 4 banks with 4500 members, and would like to double those numbers in the next couple years.

Having never been to India, we are currently learning much about the culture. We are also learning as much about financing as we can. Third but most important is working to remain very grounded in the Bible and prayer, something I hope will rub off on those around me.

Changing Life

2007-02-18T22:31:00.000-05:00

I have read an interesting article defining successful micro-credit from failures. To sum it up it is not the money that changes lives but the other things asked of the borrower. This is based upon Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Banks and the focus he is getting from Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. I encourage you to read it to understand where I am going with my life.

http://www.symbiotics.ch/en/rss_microfinance.asp?id=b332

I am involved in another ministry, Crown Financial, which seeks to help develop a Biblical way of handling money. Here in America it is 99% getting out of debt. And the radio programs, Bible studies, small groups, counseling is all very invasive. All the material seeks to very much change your life, and that is harsh if you do not want to.

So I spent the last five years of my life with Crown's anti-debt mantra drilled into me. And now I am to go lend money to others? This has been a struggle. Then I looked at several Bible verses. Proverbs 22:7 "Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender." and also Deuteronomy 15:4-6 and 28:1, 2, 12, which ends with "You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none." AH!!! Look at what Mr. Yunas requires of his borrowers. Weekly loan repayments, promises not to do certain behaviors. The same is true for Opportunity International. They require weekly meetings, there is group accountability, and so much more that I do not know yet. This gives me confidence, we will leverage our stance as a lender not as money grubbers do for our gain but for cultural change, one borrower as a time.

But that is a big weight on our shoulders, we are asking for lives to change, culture to change, and who is to say what is the right culture? "You may have the money if you hop on one foot an hour a day." I don't want people to say they are a Christian just to get some cash. No I want changed lives, hearts. A slow steady solid change, such that for the year I am working, I will only have set the groundwork.

Follow The Path

2007-02-13T18:52:00.000-05:00

This was written this past fall, but the pictures were from last week:

Reading Ezekiel I learned that most people in the bible who had revelations from God were in a state of shock for a time, usually seven days. I also noticed how quickly time can pass in a single verse. Lay on your left side for over a year. On your right for 40 more days. Speak only what the Lord puts in your mouth. I am glad I do not see 4-headed beasts destroying the world with coal and chariots with eyes. My north is not thunder. I have seen a tire washing in the waves. I have walked around in a circle following my own path. The first time around I prayed that I would follow God's will not my own foolishness. I am so fearful of something like depression, schizophrenia, or just plain being crazy being a part of my whole. I need to have confidence that what I am going through is real. My first time around I looked at things, cleared a path, and was free to go wherever I wanted and at what speed. “Go around again.” “Follow your tracks.” That was harder, I could not look out unless I was stopped, I had to look down to step in the same spot, and even then it is not exact. Even though it was just moments ago that I walked that path I had trouble remembering exactly which foot went first and why my pace varied. It was not until the third time around I remembered that the car went by. The fifth and I tried to look up and follow the path. The sixth I could see how poorly I had done.

God does have me on a path. I think in Ezekiel where the Lord spoke. No longer will a son be held accountable for his father’s sins. A man will be only responsible for himself. And if a righteous man sins, all his goodness will be forgotten, he will be shunned. But if an evil man casts off his old ways and seeks God, he will be a new man. My greatest fear, I am a good man at the moment. Yet I have this pain caused within me by the possibility to fail. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to cause others to fail, to sin. Build me up oh God; remove from me my hard heart. My desire for evil. How I long to be with you forever, yet I fear death.

As I walked that path I was told earlier and earlier to go around again. If I waited until I got to the last moment I stood there helpless thinking of what I should do. But if I spent the whole path listening I could just walk past that point without missing a step.

Numbers do not mater; six is no more significant than five or five thousand. It is that you do it for the Lord. Time does not mater, I thought at one point this fall I would have all my answers in a matter of weeks, then days, then hours. Then nothing happened. I went for a bike ride. Called to do it. Called to a spot a short road called Ryan’s Place. I prayed and all my expectations were washed away. But I still had God, I still had this journey. I still walk the walk God asks me too. It is hard, it is depressing. He is asking me to take every step his way, but he is not guiding my every step. No He is not. I am given short messages and my faith needs to keep me on track to follow through.

Our conversations are to get me to do something I would not do without them. Build me up and do what God wants, what I am capable of, but yet would not think of doing on my own. Yet I have confidence that I have been prepared for what I will be doing. But God has washed away all my expectations of what that is.

I have been taught the secular way, and if Christ was not leading my on a very specific journey the best way to get a job. And it has worked. But God has a very different plan and right now my step is to wait. I have no clue how to wait without dwindling away. What if I am asked to run a mile. I can sprint maybe 100 feet before I would fail. God is not letting me know how to train except to read the Bible; and then I still have some doubts. Maybe I forgot a 1000 steps back that God already told me to do something and I have forgotten.

1Cor3:9-15

2007-02-12T13:38:00.000-05:00

Or to put it another way, you are God's house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you'll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won't get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn't, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won't be torn out; you'll survive—but just barely. (1cor3:9-15 The Message)

We are the materials, what Paul does not say here, but does say other places is that the materials are modified to be used best. Take a look at this railroad I was building. In the center there is a 2x4 leg holding up that section of the layout. Problem is, it is too long by 18 inches. To leave it like that would compromise the look of the whole railroad up top. Soon after this picture was taken I cut that 2x4 down to the track level.

Also in Paul's story I am impressed by the inspector looking at what the architect and builders had done with the material. Paul knows the load on himself as instructor of how to be a church. A question is, while the foundational can not change, and the building materials are basically the same, does the architecture need to change? Why? and How?

A Joyful Noise

2007-01-26T14:49:00.000-05:00

Last night at New Community we sang the song "Make A Joyful Noise." Usually with this song the thought is of a cowboy yell. But I thought back to a different sound, something so invasive it shakes the entire body. The low grumble of a diesel train. I have so many times driven along side trains as they parallel Chicago Drive from Jenison to Holland. I don't know why but I found the red Soo engines to be the most impressive. But it is a small picture of how powerful Our God is.

When I set out to give you a picture of these trains I found this one gleaned off the Internet many years ago. It is not along the line, but it is a location I know well. The Judd end of CSX Wyoming yard. I can hardly remember a day as a child that my dad did not go down here and park. This place was so important for a time in our family that my brothers bought a house a half mile away. Those times sitting with my dad waiting patiently and not so patiently for the next train to come. The back and forth action of switchers sorting trains. The local switcher that would go to the industries behind the camera. (That was a real treat to me.) The other railfans who used to come to see the sights, talk and gossip. Conversations in our family did not happen unless it involved trains. Trips did not happen in our family unless it involved trains. I had a girlfriend who could not grasp this.

Trains are cool, and they still play a part in my life. I have a lot of stuff for building model railroads. I read magazines, I see Christian metaphors in trains. But Christ is more important. If God asked me to let go of all my trains I would. Recently I did ask if I should, I cried when the answer was no you keep them. My job, my future plans, and so many other things were taken away to be told I can keep little toys is so amazing. The good news is that it is not the only way to talk to my father and brothers anymore. Though it is one way.

The Tire

2007-01-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

Currently we live near the shore of Lake Michigan. It is a short walk to the beach to sit and watch the waves against the sand and rocks.

This fall while in the middle of this decision of taking a great secular job or holding out for God's plan I had a great illustration given to me.

A tire on the waves, trying to land. Wave after wave pushing it towards the sand, where it could set roots, fill with sand and stay. But in the way of this tire was a small rock, the size of my fist. This rock was just holding the tire back, moving with each wave, I was so amazed that this large tire was not overcoming this rock.

Then awashed with shivers down my back I saw that I was the tire, trying to land. The waves pushing me here and there but the goal was to get to the sand and get stuck there. God was the rock. No, God is not that small but he talks just loud enough for us to hear. In 1 Kings 19 Elijah hears God in a whisper. But other places God talks in a normal voice such as Acts 9, or even writes his message, Dan 5 or Exodus 34. In each case it is much like that rock, just enough. Not overwhelming, as there were larger rocks on that beach.

I suppose given enough time the waves tire and rock would change, and the tire would land on the beach and fill with sand. But I left before it did that that day. When I went back the next week there were no tires on that beach.

Telephone

2007-01-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

As a student there was a couple times that the teachers lined us all up. Then he would whisper a phrase in the first ones ear, they would in turn whisper it to the next. All the way down the line this was done. The last student would say what he thought he heard out loud. So many times it was not what the teacher said.

I am reminded of the tower of Babel shortly after the flood in Gen 11. I still think people speaking the same language have trouble understanding each other, an outfall of God's decision to confuse our communication. This lack of ability to communicate sure can lead to a lot of frustration. In both those giving and receiving the message.

Why else would Jesus speak in parables? If it was easy to explain why Christ had to die we would all get it. But no, we must have faith. We must have ears to hear and eyes to see. We must be listening, really listening.

Doubt

2007-01-18T14:14:00.000-05:00

Like most people in scary situations we have doubt. In this case it is about spending such a long time in a strange land and the cost. Much of the advice we get is do a short term mission first, ten days or something. Commit to a year without knowing what we are getting into?

Then you start thinking that maybe God is trying to tell us we are a little off the mark. Maybe we are only supposed to do a short trip a year from now. How are we going to raise $27 grand???

Then I pray, I ask God to take away all my worry, my plans. Clear my mind and help me to see the goal He has for us. Then into the evening and waking up in the morning I am again confident that we need to walk towards working with OI, this year, a full year, and trust God to help with the funding. My job: learn what you can about India, what you are doing, missions, churches, networking, and show love, patience, kindness, perseverance. I picked up the Bible to look over Cor 13 about love and saw 1 John 3:18 to 20. My worry is not loving myself being consistent in walking the path God wants us on is.

My choice today is to follow Gods plan.

My Passions

2007-01-17T15:35:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking again about what I am doing. Pondering over what I see is most important to me. Yes Christ, God, etc... the foundation we all believe, but there is also the extra stuff, the trivial. The things I think that are important that you could care less about. These things are what make me one part of the body and you another.

I want things to work right. A perfect product is invisible, you pick up the phone dial talk and hang up, never once thinking about the phone, sound quality, button size, etc.. just the conversation.
Another thing that lights me up is support, I loved helping others to do things better. I loved helping the artists at the car company I worked for develop the perfect look. I loved doing it at the lowest cost for the manufacture. While I do enjoy being an artist, I also like being part of the team to make an artist even better.
To the spiritual level I feel a passion for the 99, you know the sheep left in the pen while the shepherd left. All so often it is about the one, no focus on making better wool, meat, or helping people sleep.
Then fourth, I have this ethereal idea that I should be standing up in front of people. And that I should be writing a book. This is something so out there I can figure no way to put a goal but to say "Lord your will be done."

I always thought that I would have to change greatly to be USED by God as more than a tithing unit. (Why else would I have this great education / income potential?) But no, God wants to use me as I am. Now this does not mean that I will not have better wool as part of the process.

The plan

2007-01-17T02:56:00.000-05:00

In August of 2006 I could not sleep one night. Days away from finishing my Masters of Engineering, days away from moving out of my house and into my in laws. Months after losing my job and still no sign of a new job. I prayed. I asked questions to God. And I got answers to many of those questions. Why? "To get me to do something I would not do on my own." What? "Spend a year as a missionary." Where? "Chennai" Oh China I like China western China is so pretty, the culture is so amazing. Oh boy oh boy oh boy... When? "Christmas" Wait how do I know this is true, can I have a sign this is true? "Yes Mongolia"

First I thought we were going to Mongolia so I contacted Interserve and said send me to Mongolia! Mongolia came back and said no job for you. Ok umm oh wait Mongolia is the sign China was the place lets go China lets GO! Lots of research, China needs short term American middle managers to help the quickly growing companies this will work I can do that. Then in prayer I heard that I know all about China in two weeks.. ten days... five.. one... lets go to a Chinese restaurant today to celebrate! Eat across the way from a very uncivil man from China.. that is Ok it is part of their culture. One day past... depression... Lord if I am to get to China by Christmas don't the parts have to be in place? It IS mid October. OK Lord I will let go of China and cling to you. Depression and focus on God through reading the Bible, and rebuilding again.

Beginning of December an email comes, someone in India has a position that may be for you. Yes send details! Two days before Christmas a description of a position in Chennai India. I try to read the job description, the two year old goes nuts. I try to read the description my eyes cross. I try to read the description the wife talks... the phone rings... my eyes blur... the door handle on the car breaks... I worry... I think I can't do what they are asking... I just pray. Lord what should I do? "Yes" "This is something that you need to walk towards, not run, or sit and wait for, nor walk away from, nor run from."

Wow. wow. WOW!

God is so amazing. I am so nothing, yet... wow. Lord I can not do this without you.

Winter Wonder

2007-01-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

Shortly before I graduated from college I thought to myself that this is a start of a journey. One that I need to have a blessing on. I asked God in prayer to have someone come lay hands on me. I did not ask just once but many times. This was something that I did not tell anyone about, it was me and God. I do not know why I felt that need so strongly, but I did. That prayer was answered. One day a guy from Intervarsity whom I had talked to, but not often, knocked on my door. (How he knew where my room was I have no idea. I never even thought of that until now.) Well he knocked on my door and said. "I don't know why but I feel like I need to lay my hands on you and pray for you and your future." (allow me to paraphrase since that was 10 years ago.) My response is one of rejoicing! (Well as best as an introvert can.) That was so great God sent someone to do what I was asking for. That is still proof to me today that God moves us at the heart level. God showed me how important I am and that he is with me on this journey with him.

These three pictures are an interesting story. I looked out my window one winter day to see small tracks circling through the snow. In the middle was a vole making tighter and tighter circles until he was just spinning in one spot.

He just ran and ran, lost out in that snow, unable to find a hole to safety. Gone crazy. When I got out there to take the picture I scared him greatly, he shot off towards a flower pot and then again under a bit of liner from my pond.

Like that mouse I was stuck until I had that nudge to get moving in a more productive way.

And you know what, that has happened again in my life. After I lost my job I did all the right steps and felt like I was going in a circle. Then I got a nudge to change my path, to go somewhere that I would have never gotten on my own.

Value

2007-01-14T15:41:00.000-05:00

I do not care about money, bills or coins. I do not like to spend it, I do not drivel too much about what I get paid as long as it is fair. But all the same I am stingy, I will not just give my money to someone else. What I really care about is stuff. I see a need for stuff to be used wisely. So many times I see around me where people go and spend lots of money on things and then shortly there after just throw things. People today have little sense of the value of things. Even our government thinks things have a great value. Tax time is coming, I recommend Tax Cut and Deduction Pro software. In Deduction Pro it is amazing what values the IRS has placed on donated items. It is even more than I would say they are worth. (Many times I do undervalue the items I gave away because otherwise I feel like I am cheating Uncle Sam.)

This past summer we sold our house and moved to a small apartment. It took two of the largest Uhaul trucks to carry our stuff away. And I still needed to have my parents come and take some of it in their minivan. And there was still stuff we left at the house! I look around the storage place and all those boxes of stuff. I don't know why we have it. It has been in storage for six months and there is a lot of stuff that I have never even thought of going through. (ah but there has been a lot of stuff I have needed.)

I had a dream a little while back. I was chasing my brother through the backyards of a rich neighborhood, the kind with iron fences and swimming pools. Well he was way ahead of me and I was getting farther and farther behind before I gave up and just laid in the middle of someones back yard waiting to be found. The issue, I was taking my bike with me the whole time. He did not have a bike. Why did I have to drag that thing that was worthless for going through tight spots and over fences with me?

I prayed that I was not that foolish to be bringing extra stuff with me on my journey of following Christ. I realized that while all my stuff in storage it has value it is worthless also. I am a caretaker, holding onto it until the owner asks for it to be used. It is worthless to me, but of use to God. I have to be able to let go of everything I have, cherish none of it.

I have included some links to ministries that relate to money and Christ, Crown help prepare me for not having a job by encouraging me to not have debt. Opportunity International give a picture of what the very poor would do with a little money. Manytime a loan to them of $50 doubles the standard of living they have.

Christmas Memories

2007-01-10T22:24:00.000-05:00

I am trying to remember how many times I have gotten a tree for Christmas. There was the time in college a friend and I split for a blue spruce and set it up in my dorm room. That is part of the story how I got married, when it came time to go home this lovely girl gave me a set of flannel sheets to wrap the tree in to keep my car clean. Her sheets went on my bed and my old sheets went around the tree. I don't remember any trees while single. And after we were married I tried hard each year to get a small cheap tree.

This year was different. Remembering that each small tree year I looked at the little tree and felt dissapointed I wanted a true floor to ceiling tree. We hunted down a fraiser fur at a local tree farm and took it home. I actually had to cut the top off to get the star on. I filled the tree with six strings of lights and 50 feet of ribon. We then made cookie orniments, flour water and salt, to cover the tree.

Then there is the presents under the tree. I did not buy a single one of those. And only a couple are for me and my daughter. We love our family and friends, and this is one way we try to show it. Though I can NEVER outdo my mother in law. They filled both the trunk and back seat of their car to the brim for seven grandkids and eight parents. Even this is pale compaired to the fulfilling that we were given about our future a couple days before Christmas.